RADIO GNOME INVISIBLE PART 1 - FLYING TEAPOT

If Gong's Radio Gnome Trilogy were available as a single set (I think I saw it in a record store once), I would undoubtedly award it five stars, such is the wonderful variety of music to be found therein. Taken on their own, however, none of the albums qualify as absolute masterpieces, for reasons I'll explain in three separate reviews.

FLYING TEAPOT has always been the part of the trilogy closest to my heart. The more conventional songs will brighten up your day (especially "Radio Gnome Invisible" and "The Pot Head Pixies"), while the two longer "freakouts" ("Flying Teapot" and "Zero the Hero") will blow your mind. The first of these freakouts starts with floating sounds, produced by Daevid Allen on 'glissando guitar' and by Tim Blake on synth. It subsequently turns into a prime space-rock jam session (tremenjous fun: space-rock about flying teapots!) which is dominated by Didier Malherbe's sax, and it ends on what must be one of the weirdest drum solos ever put to record. Malherbe is probably this album's true star, since he is also given the chance to solo freely on "Zero the Hero", superbly accompanied on (among other things) rhythm guitar - but by whom? Daevid Allen or Steve Hillage??? I only recently found out Hillage actually appears on this album. He does not contribute any solos, though.

My only reservation about FLYING TEAPOT concerns the 'space whisper' and the witchy cackling of Gilly Smith, a.k.a. Shakti Yoni. It's bad enough old hippies saw women as 'magick mothers' or sex kittens, and it's downright irritating if they ONLY let them play sex kitten roles on not one, but two different parts of the Radio Gnome Trilogy. I never fell for all that whispering and cackling - nowadays I just use my fast-forward button.