This Prog-Rock Cover of Post Malone’s ‘Circles’ from Hawkestrel, Todd Rundgren and L. Shankar is a Trip (Listen)

Hawkestrel, a prog-rock supergroup of sorts involving members of seminal band Hawkwind, recently premiered an intriguing cover of “Circles,” originally released by mega-rapper Post Malone earlier this year. The reinterpretation of the track features none other than Todd Rundgren on guitar and Lakshminarayana Shankar (L. Shankar) on violin.

Here’s the song’s corresponding music video, an action-packed send-up from director Jared Cohn:

And here’s the original version of “Circles” from Post Malone. The song was featured on the rapper’s 2019 album Hollywood’s Bleeding:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sca9FP6zl8

According to a press release, this prog/space-rock cover of “Circles” makes history as it’s the first prog-rock cover of a song originally performed by a hip-hop artist, so there’s that. Overall, it’s a pretty interesting project, and the involvement of Todd Rundgren and L. Shankar makes it even better.

The song comes on the heels of Hawkestrel’s debut album, The Future Is Us, which features a pretty eye-popping array of participating musicians, including:

Alan Davey
Lemmy Kilmister
Ginger Baker
Nik Turner
Simon House
Huw Lloyd-Langton
Paul Rudolph
Mick Slattery
Bridget Wishart
and special guest William Shatner.

As for Post Malone, this is latest in a bit of a trend bringing the superstar to classic rock circles. He collaborated with Ozzy Osbourne on another single from Hollywood’s Bleeding, “Take What You Want,” which has a new video culled from a live performance in Los Angeles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl4Xwqfy5Uw

That collaboration brought Osbourne into contact with Post Malone’s producer, Andrew Watt, with whom Osbourne recorded his new album, Ordinary Man, which will be released in early 2020.