Hurdy gurdy man

Steve Hillage. This guy really is incredible.

Not only is he an amazing guitarist whose solo work and the stuff he did with 70s psychedelic gods Gong still sounds great to this day, he is also at the forefront of underground dance with System 7, a band he started in the 1990s and which continues today.

Hillage played with The Orb after hearing them mixing his album Rainbow Dome Musick (an ambient piece created for the 1979 Festival for Mind-Body-Spirit, dedicated "to the universal spirit of New Age synthesis", which played continuously in a rainbow dome) in one of their DJ sets and going over to say something along the lines of "hey, that's me, that is!"

But that's not all. Hillage is also heavily involved in world beat music. After producing the 1, 2, 3 Soleils show - and album - with Faudel, Khaled and Rachid Taha he went on to work as co-writer, producer and guitarist with algerian punk-rai star Taha.

Here he's covering Donovan somewhere in Germany.