This review is a special tribute to the late great Daevid
Allen. I remember hearing Gong’s music on the Prog Archives website ten years
ago and I became hooked into their sound from the Canterbury sounds and the
Space Rock genre, but mixed in with Avant-Garde and Jazz Fusion rolled into one
like no other. It was like something coming in from another planet and
exploring into this amazing and surreal world of the Pot Head Pixies.
This year, the reissue of Camembert Electrique, which was originally released back in 1971 on
the BYG Actuel label and then reissued when they were signed to Virgin Records
for a cheaper price for 59p at the time they were working on their fifth album,
You. Their second album was recorded
for only ten days at the Strawberry Studios in which its now known as the Chateau d’Herouville from June to September of that
year and it’s this combination of surrealism, ambient, bizarre, weird, and
mind-boggling adventure that would later become the basis for the Radio Gnome
trilogy.
From the radio transmissions frequency of the introductions of
Radio Gnome and seguing into the
heavy guitar/bass riff of a psych-proto-punk sounds for You Can’t Kill Me featuring Didier Malherbe’s sax and intense drum
work by Pip Pyle and a psych freakout guitar solo to go along, makes the song
the perfect way to start off on a journey into space.
And then on the organ-driven humoristic touch as if Daevid
is giving a sermon inside a galactic church with I’ve Bin Stoned Before as the mood suddenly changes to an increase
tempo that have a lullaby sound as it goes into an homage to the Rolling
Stones’ 2000 Man on Mister Long Shanks: O Mother. But it’s
Gilli Smyth with the spoken word and space whisper coming into the picture with
the ambient/atmospheric voyages on I Am
Your Fantasy.
The lyrics have a weird touch, but it fits perfectly as the
music sets the tone as Gilli nails it on the vocalizations as the thumping sax
wah-wah sinister intensity of Dynamite,
features the driven section of the rhythm and on I Am Your Animal is Smyth pushing the envelope of the sexual fantasies
and instruments creates the tension on what’s going on and they nailed it!
And You Tried So Hard reminded
me of NEU and Captain Beefheart’s Safe As
Milk-era for the first minute and fifty-three seconds and then moves into
the laid-back psychedelic on what the person can choose between love, choice on
what to do, being strong, and how it can be wrong. But for both Fohat Digs Holes in Space and Tropical Fish / Serene, is the band flying into the space rock improvisations, but
carrying a dosage of the Canterbury touch with some Zappa-sque vibes into the
mix.
I have listened to Camembert Electrique a dozen times and this is for me one of my favorite Gong albums that I would play whenever I would get into the mood of excitement and weirdness inside me. On the reissue that Charly Records have reissued this year, is in a mini LP format with the inner sleeve, original lyrics, and liner notes by Mark Paytress about the making of the album.
I have listened to Camembert Electrique a dozen times and this is for me one of my favorite Gong albums that I would play whenever I would get into the mood of excitement and weirdness inside me. On the reissue that Charly Records have reissued this year, is in a mini LP format with the inner sleeve, original lyrics, and liner notes by Mark Paytress about the making of the album.
There is no denying where the Pot Head Pixies would later go into next as they would enter into the Flying Teapots for the trilogy is about to come next into their work.
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