Jazz-warm and water-loose — the Echoplex glowing, the voice slurred to honey. The title track was written for Nick Drake; the whole record drifts like its name.
The month after Pink Moon, the record that carries a song for him — cut mostly live in about eight days, with folk players and jazz players in the same room.
Martyn wrote the title track for Nick Drake, his Island label-mate, about the depression Drake was going through. By then Drake had delivered Pink Moon to Island, and the same engineer, John Wood, worked on both records.
According to the 2009 sleevenote, most of the album was played live in the room in just over a week near Christmas 1972. That is why the nine tracks hold together like a single late-night set.
I'd Rather Be the Devil reworks Skip James's Devil Got My Woman. After about three minutes the band gives way to a jam on Martyn's tape echo, which thins out until Danny Thompson's bass finishes the track alone.
Dave Pegg, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson of the Fairport circle play beside the jazz saxophonist Tony Coe, the vibraphonist Tristan Fry and the keyboard player Rabbit Bundrick. Danny Thompson's double bass holds them together.
Jonathan Wingate spent years as the spokesman for David Bowie and Sir Bob Geldof before turning to journalism. He writes for The Times, the Daily Telegraph, Mojo and Rolling Stone, and has interviewed everyone from Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin and Robert Plant to Björk, Smokey Robinson and Tony Bennett. A regular voice on BBC television and radio.
He opens every record up — then sits down with the rest of the room to hear it whole.
Fifty-five seats, a chair, a screen and the record, in a small theatre on Heath Street in Hampstead. The station is thirty seconds from the door.
A technique physicists use to see what moves through a room.
Beverley Martyn remembered Nick Drake living one stop down the Tube line — and coming round to babysit.
Born Iain David McGeachy on 11 September 1948 in New Malden, Surrey.
His parents divorced when he was five, and he grew up mostly in Glasgow, raised by his grandmother.
Chris Blackwell signed him to Island Records, and his first album, London Conversation, came out that October.
Married to the singer Beverley Kutner by 1969, he made Stormbringer! with her in Woodstock, and the couple's London home was in Hampstead.
Released in November 1971, Bless the Weather began his long partnership with the double bassist Danny Thompson, around the time the family moved to Hastings.
Solid Air came out in February 1973 while Martyn was touring America with Free and Traffic.
Nick Drake dies at his parents’ home in Warwickshire on 25 November 1974, aged 26.
Grace and Danger, the album that followed his marriage breaking up, was held back by Island for more than a year before its release in October 1980.
His right leg was amputated below the knee after a cyst burst.
He received the lifetime achievement award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in February, and an OBE for services to music was announced in the New Year Honours that followed.
He died in hospital in Ireland on 29 January 2009, aged 60, and his partner Teresa Walsh later collected his OBE at Buckingham Palace.
A 30-track tribute album with Beck, Robert Smith, Beth Orton, Snow Patrol and Vashti Bunyan came out in August 2011, with the proceeds going to his family.
The year The Dark Side of the Moon came out, Island released a quieter record and almost nobody bought it. It first charted thirty-six years later.
On 1 January the UK joined the European Economic Community, along with Ireland and Denmark.
The Queen opened the present London Bridge on 16 March. Its predecessor had already been sold to an American businessman and rebuilt at Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
Pink Floyd's album came out in Britain on 16 March. It deals with what drives people mad, and Syd Barrett's breakdown was a major inspiration, a subject close to Solid Air's own.
On 1 April value added tax replaced purchase tax, one of the conditions of joining the EEC.
On 3 April the Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made the first call from a handheld mobile phone, on a New York street, to a rival at Bell Labs.
Martyn's label released the Wailers' Catch a Fire in April. Chris Blackwell had overseen the overdubs and mix in London.
On 5 May, second-division Sunderland beat the cup holders Leeds United 1–0 at Wembley, with a goal from the Scot Ian Porterfield.
On 14 May NASA launched Skylab, America's first space station.
On 25 May Mike Oldfield's album, which every record company Richard Branson approached had turned down, became the first release on Branson's new Virgin label.
Queen Elizabeth II opened Jørn Utzon's building on 20 October, fourteen years after work on it began.
Nicolas Roeg's Venice film of the Daphne du Maurier story, starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, is a study of how a couple lives with grief.
On 13 December, with coal running short, Edward Heath announced that from New Year's Day businesses could use electricity on only three days a week.
Sleevenotes Nº.001 · Kid A — the house, listening
Island released May You Never as a single with drums and guitar from Paul Kossoff of Free. Martyn disliked it, left the producer to finish it, and later joked that it sold four copies.
Nick Drake recorded Pink Moon with John Wood at Sound Techniques over two late nights in October 1971, and Island released it on 25 February 1972. By the time of the Solid Air sessions Drake was the friend the title song was written for.
Over the Hill was written on an early-morning train from London to Hastings, as Martyn watched his house come into view behind the town's East Hill.
Recording began at Sound Techniques in Chelsea with John Wood, who engineered and co-produced the album, and continued with further sessions in September.
Most of the album was cut in about eight days near Christmas at Sound Techniques and Island's Basing Street studio, mostly played live with few overdubs. The official site says recording was finished by 9 December, sooner than Martyn wanted.
Because Martyn had never been happy with the single, John Wood re-recorded May You Never in an almost single take at about two in the morning.
The album came out while Martyn was touring the United States with Free and Traffic.
Island released Solid Air as ILPS 9226 in Fabio Nicoli's gatefold sleeve. Inside, Martyn left a short message: love, enough said.
Featuring a unique, specially created visual journey via The Screens — developed especially for these nights.
Nine plates, one a song — made for this page. The screen for the night is still being built.
Written for Nick Drake, with Danny Thompson's double bass, Tony Coe on saxophone and Tristan Fry on vibraphone. Martyn and Thompson nicknamed it Sausages.
Richard Thompson plays mandolin, Simon Nicol autoharp and Sue Draheim violin. Martyn wrote it on a train to Hastings, the family's home.
The B-side of the 1973 US single of May You Never. Dr John later covered it on Anutha Zone (1998).
Skip James's Devil Got My Woman, first recorded for Paramount in 1931, under a new title. It turns into an Echoplex tape-echo jam that Danny Thompson finishes alone.
The quiet song that follows the storm of I'd Rather Be the Devil. Beth Orton covered it on the 2011 tribute album, and David Gray recorded it in 2007.
One of two tracks with the jazz saxophonist Tony Coe.
Originally called Close Brother and first released as a single in November 1971. This version was re-recorded at about 2am, and Eric Clapton covered it on Slowhand (1977).
Rabbit Bundrick's electric piano leads. Iain Matthews covered it on Stealin' Home (1978).
Adapted from Jelly Roll Baker, a traditional song Martyn used to play in folk clubs. The 1987 CD split it into two tracks, Jelly Roll Blues and Gentle Blues.
Martyn and Danny Thompson's nickname for the title track was Sausages.
Beverley Martyn remembered that when she and John lived in Hampstead, Drake lived one stop down the Tube line and sometimes came round to babysit.
John Webster's cover uses schlieren photography, a technique physicists normally use to study airflow.
Martyn told Mojo in 2000 that his only reason for buying the Echoplex was to copy Pharoah Sanders's sustain on Karma, using his guitar.
The 1971 single version of May You Never featured Paul Kossoff of Free on guitar.
Solid Air made its first appearance on the Official Albums Chart on 28 February 2009, at No. 88, a month after Martyn died.
On 11 September 2006, his 58th birthday, Martyn played the whole album at the Barbican for All Tomorrow's Parties' Don't Look Back series, with Bat for Lashes in support.
Many of the songs were used on the soundtrack of the 1999 Belfast film Titanic Town.
Eric Clapton recorded May You Never on Slowhand in 1977, and the song became a fixture of Martyn's own concerts.
The 2011 tribute album Johnny Boy Would Love This includes six songs from Solid Air, recorded by Skye Edwards, Snow Patrol, Beth Orton, The Swell Season, Joe Bonamassa, and Ted Barnes with Gavin Clark.
Q named it among the best chill-out albums of all time in 1999, and it appears in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
A half-speed master cut at Abbey Road in 2016 reached No. 6 on the Official Vinyl Albums Chart, and the album returned to the Scottish chart as recently as 2020.
Come up and find a seat. Fifty-five of them, every one close.
Presented by Jonathan Wingate — where the record came from, how it was made, the myth and the meaning.
Let the first half settle.
Solid Air end to end. Lights low, phones away — and a visual journey by The Screens, made for this record, the only light in the room.
Heath Street at night, with the record still turning in your head.
Researched October 2026. Spot something wrong? Tell us at hello@circleandstar.com.