In the late 1960s space rock emerged from psychedelic rock with the result of quasi binovular twins. The bands began to assimilate krautrock elements like repetitive hypnotic beats and electronic/ambient soundscapes. The typical instrumentation includes the synthesizer which generally offers bubbling tones and spacey patterns provoking a gliding flow. Guitars are played with glissando technique and delay/echo effects in preference. Reggae/dub elements are to detect here and there. Space rock is often coupled with the use of drugs and a mind-expanding approach, similar to krautrock. Several bands combine their live performances with a trippy lightshow using random fractals. Albums are mostly provided with at least one long meandering jam based on a main theme, loops and slight variations respectively ups and downs in waves.

You will often take notice of stories, pictures and album/song titles referring to cosmic themes. Hawkwind's live album 'Ritual' is said to be the ultimate space rock album because of the collaboration with sci-fi author Michael Moorcock. His lyrics are performed by a narrator and underlaid with synth elements. Pink Floyd can be treated as pioneers of spacey music during the band's early phase, for example some songs of 'The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn' or the live recordings of 'Ummagumma' with the stirring 'Careful With That Axe Eugene'. Grobschnitt's epic 'Solar Music' is counted among the space rock classics too. UFO, which released the extraordinary album 'Flying - One Hour Space Rock' in 1971, stands for those rock bands which were influenced by this style at least for a while. Other often mentioned bands are Gong and Eloy who offered some groundbreaking genre albums in the early period.

A space rock community is existing in nearly every country more or less. Swedish bands are known for a brisk exchange of musicians among each other. The 'Strange Daze' festivals from 1997-2000 showcased the American space rock scene. Japan is an unexhaustible reservoir of psychedelic and space prog output. Some other representative bands of the style are Øresund Space Collective with the focus on long grooving improvisations, Quarkspace and Ozric Tentacles emphasizing more electronic elements or Vespero and Hidria Spacefolk with a significant ethnic component. Other groups like Escapade and The Legandary Pink Dots are standing for an avantgarde style whereas the sound of Subarachnoid Space or Kinski is provided with transitions to the post rock genre.