GONG

First album of really Moerlen's Gong. If six early albums from Gong were Daevid Allen's ,with Canterbury sound ,full of freaky psychedelia, seventh "Shamal" ( without Allen and Gilli Smyth) was something in transition, "Gazeuse" is first real Moerlen's Gong album. The music there is jazz-fusion of highest level!

Very complex,with large percussion/drums section, new line-up includes great guitarist Alan Holdsworth as well. No traces of psychedelia of early years, just very dynamic jazz-rock.

I think, many of early Gong lovers could be mistaken by this album. It's musical direction is so different, that in fact it is just another band ( line-up is almost new as well). But for jazz fusion lovers this recording is one of the best evidence from that time.

Should be presented in every jazz fusion fan collection!

Shamal is first Gong album without Daevid Allen, Gilli Smyth and almost without Steve Hillage. Recorded right after You ( and after the end of great Gong Trilogy), it is change in direction.

Instead of Allen's Gong psychedelic Canterbury sound you will find there some transitional music. Psychedelia ( both with Allen and Gilli vocals and Hillage guitar) is almost gone, but jazz-rock is filling it's place. Whenever the musicians generally are all great, instrumental part of album sounds very competent. Main problem is Howlett vocals, which isn't good, and doesn't fit at all.

Another problem is that the album is unfocused: some separate music pieces are great, but they all are just placed in the bag without any idea or direction. Still not real jazz fusion of later Gong, the music is more early jazz-rock with plenty of pleasant and interesting moments.

All in all, that album is not bad at all, but plays some transition role by the way to non-Allen Gong. Instrumental pieces are from interesting to great. And all album isn't boring at all because it is different enough.

Must have for every Gong fan.Strong 3,5.

This album has nothing too much in common with classic Gong albums. In fact, it is "New York Gong", something like Daevid Allen solo project.

Whenever the year is 1980, don't be surprised to find there ... punk music. OK, it is far from usual punk, but Daevid Allen punk - synthesizer based , but with fast and simplistic punk rhythm. Songs are short, melodic, full of craziness and energy. Plus saxes and often speaking Daevid vocal. Plus political lyrics.

Very light traces of spacy psychedelia there. In fact, this is something should be named "prog- punk". Or you can name it kind of RIO/avant as well, with very NY downtown atmosphere ( John Cale sometimes sounds like this).

Quite interesting album, but far from Gong or usual progressive rock. For Daevid Allen fans and Gong collectors.

The return of Hillage in the band was written maybe as early as the Gong Unconvention in the winter of 2006 in Amsterdam's Melkweg, but it obviously took time to mature as in early summer of 08, Steve joined Gong on stage for two shows in London with a couple new songs, but it would be another big year before this album would see the light of day in the fall of of 09. Sooo Steve and wife Lmiquette Giraudy came back and in terms of the line-up, if the Daevid & Gilly pair are obvious, Malherbe is only a guest, reoplaced by now-usual Theo Travis, the drum stool is still under Chris Taylor and veteran Howlett on bass. Looking at the credits of the songs, it is unsurprisingly mostly an affair of the Steve/Miquette and Daevid/Gilly pairs that dominate the songwriting, even though the girls collaborate on three tracks throughout the album.

2032 is a long (almost filled to the brim) album, made from 14 songs, a few lasting between 7 and 8 minutes, and by the time you're nearing the end of the disc, it is almost 2031, so this album is aptly titled, especially if you stopped for loo emergencies. The least that can be said is that all tracks arewell-made and finely crafted, filled with a certain kind of lunacy (an updated version of early Hillage solo delirium and Daevidian madness)

Well the Pothead Pixie will find the usual Planet Gong universe, but in a violuntary updated manner, both musically, butr lyrically as well. Tracks like Digital Girl and Escape Control Delete are obvious shots at modern technology, but more annoying are the purposely light- handed pop songwriting, sometimes bordering on the silly, but not in the hilarious 70's style. The two distinctive signature lead guitars are generally working well together, Daevid's glissando solos matching Steve's delay-saturated riffs. More interesting is to try to pick out the Malherbe wind intervbention from Travis'. The album is extremely wordy with only one near-instumental (Guitar Zero) and sometimes reaches almost Kraftwerk-style of electro-pop (in Robo-Warriors) and sometimes the group sounds like another Tentacle.

Personally I thought that Zero To Infinitea was a much worthier album in the Radio Gnome Invisible saga, but it was also playing much safer. 2032 is full of risk-taking, which is always a double edged sword, but these quirky songs might seem fresh and even bring a new blood in the Gong planet, I'm not sure that they'll age as gracefully as the previous material. Personally I consider this album as quite a deception, but let's see how it ages with successive listens, which obviously won't be as frequent after the first two months.

— First review of this album —

Great little single and a classic of its type. Space rock, far closer in feel to Hawkwind than Gong. Allen and Smyth are essentially guests who have joined up with Here and Now, a kind of tribute band, but infinitely more politically credible, than the middle class and non essential (for the most part) Gong. Allen delivers one of his most honest, and direct attacks on the opiate of habits, and admits that even music fullfils this function. The Here and Now, "Planet Gong "record is one of the very best of its type ever recorded, and is utterly essential. This studio single works very well. Sadly the other side is a different matter. Rather than share royalties, and never being one to give up any part of the proceeds without a fight, Allan inserted a track from his "now are the happiest days of your life" recording. A self-serving, drivel fuelled, Anthem that sets Allan as the poor misunderstood artiest. He is selling his soul it appears to the record company, but is essential the good guy. He would have us believe or so it seems. Frankly I don't believe a word of it. I have met far to many damaged people, who were at one times big fans of this Australian showman and his Pandora's box of deceit. If you are offered this single, I suppose you should buy it, but believe me when I say that David Allen isnt anything like as pleasant as he wants you to believe and don't get pulled in his world of pot smoking and drug experimentation. Many believe that LSD was a CIA plot. When you are dealing with people like Allen, nothing is as it appears.

Well what can I say, this certainly had the potential to be a good record. After all it is as close to a full classic line up as is possible, minis Hi T. Moonweed of course. This missing member should have tipped me off, but more of that later. In some ways it works although the music is admittedly rather repetitive. Daevid Allen indeed seems ageless, a clear indication of a mind that has been freed of many errors. However Gilli seems to have morphed into a completely different animal (I am your animal) her lyrics on yoni poem, made me want to puke my dinner up. What has she become seems she is intent on leading people up the garden path. Yoni poem is so unpleasant that it's a wonder that Allen, Melherbe, Hillage etc are willing to work with her. Look kids the php on your computer has nothing to do with gong, don't get sucked into her mind games she is a nasty woman IMHO. So shocked and put off was I by this one abuse of the recording studio that I turned it off and didn't go near it again for a couple of days "that record did my head in "said my wife and I agree it was not a pleasant experience. Otherwise the music is often simplistic and there are many references to old Gong numbers. Hillage is most often mixed to far back and the lyrics are used , it seems to make up for the lack of compositional skills on offer. A 100% Gong nutter will likely find plenty to encourage them to buy further outpourings. Sadly as far as I am concerned "You" remains the last truly worthy recording by this band. I cannot of course speak for Tim Blake, but I do note that he continues to cut decent records that display a good heart. To be honest this record has some good moments but the moment the lyrics start to bite, its time to switch off. Frankly kids this band is past its sell by date, and no I am not simply being a critic, there is something unhealthy about the lyrics of Ms Smyth and really there always was, but she used to hide them deep in the echo units. Don't get pulled into the planet gong story it's a counter-fiat nonsense spread to keep you off the scent. There is far to much of this kind of thing in modern music, Gong may not sound like a classic Satanic rock band, but this is Shiva worship designed to part you of your hard earned cash. This is the work of wrong headed and deeply cynical people, with the sole intention of fathering their own retirements. If you have any kind of common sense you will give this record a miss. Wish I had!

First: Didier Malherbe does play on this album, and second: Theo Travis is an excellent and innovative sax/flute-player. Theo is recording and touring with Robert Fripp, and they released the wonderful "Thread" in 2008.

This cd is wonderfully produced and mixed, I have seldom heard such a wonderful sound on a live recording. About half the album can be found on the Gong DVD "high above..." , while the rest are from Bergen,Norway and Exeter a couple of weeks later. Gong presented new songs from the "zero to infinity"-album. The new songs blend wonderfully with the older songs, and I guess Gong-newbies would have problems hearing which are new songs and which are the classics. I remember Keith tha bass (Planet Gong) describing this line-up as "creme de la creme".

Enough said. I just love this album.

What a surpise! Some 25 years after ending the Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy,, Gong is back with a new tome of the Pot Head Pixie and the planet Gong mythology . Although Daevid had reanimated GonG in the mid-90's and the PHP world was its "fond de commerce", there wasn't much in terms of new stuff for the group to expand upon. So the group went on to write another chapter of the RGI and to be honest, the coup is fairly succesful. The line-up helps a lot of course , with all of the major actors (bar the then-ever- absent Hillage and the fact that both now-deceased Moerlen and Pyle were then-busy), we can say that 02 Infinity is a classic by the classic. Indeed Malherbe leaves graciously space for newcomer Travis and then-third-string drummer Chris Taylor are today's first string players..... both of which will have their character in the mythology. While the artwork is unfortunately way too technological (but cosmic still), a superb Mike Howlett production, we'd be pretty well indecent not to enjoy this to the fullest the latest chapter of Zero's adventures.

After a short Gypsy-like intro, thegroup embarks with the funky flute, doudouk and sax- laden Magdalene track, before entering a You?like transe number with the Invisible Temple (already chanted via the Inner and Outer Temple of Egg) complete with space whispers, courtesy of Gilly. Zeroid and Wise Man are both among the harder-edged tracks with some solid guitar works, even some histrionics moments from Daevid. A bit later, Gilly Tyoni's passage on Mars is quite interesting and whisperless. A bit further down the Milky Way, Gong's musuc gets downright dissonant and weird with a some strange telephone calls and sometimes you can think of Devo in the beat of Damaged Man. The following Bodilingus is quite deceiving, despite being really too relaxed (think of I Talk To The Wind on Crimson's debut), and with too many tracks on this album, nothing exciting happens; Tali's Songis another one of those You-era groove, but it is almost a filler. Of course the new adventures of Zero could only end at tea break and savouring a cup of Infinitea.

The only other critic I can see with ZTI is that it doesn't bring anything new to the RGI world, except another chapter of adventures, but then again I'm not sure the goal was that much more ambitious. As for the commercial issues, I'm not sure that this album's kinship wuth the RGI trilogy will provoke a tsunam of sales that would suddendly make GonG members nababs. The music on it is often excellent, but not brilliant or exciting, despite not being groundbreaking, but the proghead's nostalgy should do the rest. This writer's usual aesthtetics would have him normally demolish such an easy touchdown, but then again, Gong was always among my weak and soft spot, which means that the group would really have screw up for me to reject an album of theirs. This is a partizan four star.

Pierre Moerlen's Gong - Time is the Key (1979)

This record has really nothing to do with the Canterbury Gong tradition, nor with the Gazeuse- like fusion of Pierre Moerlen's Gong. This is just a solo project of percussionist Peirre Moerlen. There is simply no real jazz on this record. The first side has only metalophone and some bass,drums and synths. My overall impression is that this is suited for muzak only. Nothing of interest at all for people who like progressive music. It's just boring new age. On side two we get to listen to some jazz, but even then the production is horrible and the Alan Holdsworth part is but a joke. A bad piece of music with a mediocre solo. I just can't think of anyone who would want to listen to this record, including myself. So... one star then.

Wow. This album far exceeded hopes or expectations. Having said that, it is the first Gong material since 1975 to involve all the most creative and accomplished Gong members (in my opinion), albeit without Pierre Moerlen sadly. That team always has for a long time had the potential to return together to produce top notch recordings as they had rarely, if ever, failed to do so in the past.

Compared to all the other post-Trilogy output, the key for me is the return of Hillage, for his superlative guitar riffs and the soaring fortification of the cosmos these can provide. Despite the years, Allen sounds as fresh, insane and articulate as ever, whilst Hillage plays with an enhanced focus and precision and is meatier here - whilst somehow embracing many of his signature riff sequences from the past.

I would rate this album as five stars were it not for two aspects: Firstly, I miss the complexity and brilliance of Pierre Moerlen on drums and percussion. Without him 2032 can rock solidly where appropriate, but it does miss out on those special little flourishes, especially on quieter or transitional passages where he could turn the tempo on its head or intertwine with Didier Malerbe's jamming on saxophone. So its a bit leaner and less multi-dimensional in that respect, but in all others the musicanship, compositions and content are as rich as ever.

Secondly, some of the ravings of Gilli Smith, although no-doubt good for you in the right measure, are likely to scare small children or lead to use of the skip button. I am using a new Genre tag for "Yoni Poem" of "Weird Shit"..i have quite a lot of Prog that probably qualifies as such (in a nice way), but nothing to match that. After repeated plays, i would rate about half the tracks as standouts and with each listen more get added stars. I remember it took me a number of plays to get into some of the Trilogy (Flying Teapot in particular), and the same applies to this album. My current favourites include Escape Control Delete, Waccy Baccy Banker (with great lyrics and an unexpected nod to "No Future" by the Sex Pistols perhaps), The Year 2032 (with musical references to Pot Head Pixies from Flying Teapot), Guitar Hero (Hillage & Didier at best), The Gris Gris Girl (some pastoral Allen+flute, plus more Hillage) and Portal (Hillage and Didier at best again).

The first three tracks are also strong and provide a great opening sequence, including an updated fusion of styles including, for a brief period, some rapping by Allen on City Of Self Fascination. How To Stay Alive is another highpoint, with some great floating spacy passages that would not have been out of place on You. Theres a video on youtube for a shortened version of this track.