Space Sessions: Songs From A Tin Can is Canadian astronaut (and former International Space Station commander) Chris Hadfield’s long-promised album of songs he recorded, at least in part, while in space. Holed up in his tiny sleeping cubicle on the station after “work hours”, and trying to brace an acoustic guitar against his own body so it could actually be played, Hadfield used an iPad to generate a click track by which to keep tempo, and to record his guitar and vocal parts as separate tracks. (His sleeping area was the quietest place aboard the ISS; air handling and life support systems created too much noise anywhere else. Turns out that the 1980s/90s Star Trek series, with their constant “air conditioning” roar in the background, weren’t far off the mark.)
Aside from the obligatory appearance of his mesmerizing YouTube favorite cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” as a bonus track, everything on Space Sessions is written by Hadfield himself in a folk-country style. A great many of the songs are, somewhat predictably, space-themed, though it’s worth noting that some of them were written while in orbit, while others were penned on the ground before liftoff. But even with the constant subtext of space in the background, there’s everything from a musical prayer for the reliability of the technology keeping space explorers alive (“Big Smoke”) to a number about getting accustomed to zero-G disorientation (“Feet Up”) to a story song about a woman giving birth while her husband is in space (“Caroline”).
All of it is performed with a strong singer/songwriter sensibility (I think John Denver would have approved of both the music and the venue in which it was made). Only a couple of tracks suffer from having been recorded in a sleeping cubicle on a real orbiting space station, but this can probably be forgiven for the following reason: recorded on a real orbiting space station. In all seriousness, however, Hadfield’s got the goods to command a space station or belt out a tune. This stuff would be worth a listen even if it was completely earthbound.
- Big Smoke (3:37)
- Beyond The Terra (4:05)
- Feet Up (2:57)
- I Wonder If She (4:19)
- Caroline (4:12)
- Jewel In The Night (3:08)
- Daughter Of My Sins (2:26)
- Window Of My Mind (3:15)
- Space Lullaby (3:25)
- Farm Auction (3:08)
- Ride That Lightning (3:20)
- Space Oddity (5:19)
Released by: Warner Music Canada
Release date: October 9, 2015
Total running time: 43:11
