MOONTAN

To most of the people who've heard of GE outside The Netherlands, this is probably through this album, but not under this wild cover. Returning to a more GE style (as in Seven Tears instead of Together), the group really put all of the chances behind them, and even used of nudity in that gothic cabaret dancer. Needless to say the artwork did not cross the borders easily (especially the WASP borders), but when it didn't, publicity stunts were managed and a different cover was used (one of an earring hanging from an ear), but the GE name made headlines, followed by an unlikely international hit called Radar Love. While the album named Moontan appeared more or less at the same time in the western world, it presented different track lists in different countries, some even boasting the oldie (but goodie) Big Tree, Blue Sea (from Walls of Dolls) to make this discovery album even stronger, but I will speak of the Dutch release.

As rapidly mentioned above GE returned to longer tracks, since it allowed them to exploit their real tightness and some really fine instrumental interplay and there are a couple beauties here, namely the 9-mins+ Are You Receiving Me?, where Barry Hay blows some real fine winds (his sax tone is slightly reminiscent of VdGG's Jaxon) and even a good accordion break while later Kooymans rips a mean solo, and Rinus' bass rules underneath it all. Another huge success is the strange and stuffed Vanilla Queen (the dancer on the sleeve?) with its weird synth slowly climbing up and down the sound barrier, while the middle section (with Kooymans' solo) is yet another beauty (GE was on top of its game), before veering downright odd with these female interventions and bringing back the music with distant strings and brass section to cap it all off. Very impressive, these guys outdid Alquin, E&F and came close to master like Focus and Finch or even Supersister.

OK, you've all heard the excellent driving anthem radar love, so I won't spend anymore time on it, except to tell you that drummer Cesar jumped from behind his kit over it to land in front during this track in concert, and while I don't think he still does in his late 50, this was one of those rare stunts that only Iggy Pop could've bettered. The rest of the album is generally good but lacks the spectacular aspects of these three tracks, although the US copies remedies to this by including Big Tree, Blue Sea, thus making the album a killer. But the original version of this album is a tad less brilliant but remains a must for 70's prog fans.