DASHIELL HEDAYATT

Dashiell Hedayat's 'Obsolete' LP is a spectacular Space-Rock trip. French poet Dashiell H. latched onto the GONG commune of the time to bring to reality his artistic vision, presented through the medium of music, of his life and times during the beat/hippy era (not that I'd really know or fully understand), but on the back cover of the LP it states "Warning : This record must be played as loud as possible, must be heard as stoned as impossible and thank-you everybody" - I am no longer like this but the album is still part of my essential listening roster.

Needless to say, if you are a fan of Camembert/Continental Circus period Gong, then this album is totally ESSENTIAL. If you're not, then it's STILL totally essential !! Full-on tripped-out spacey jams full of cascading guitar glissando's and sharp soloing from DAEVID ALLEN, relentless Bass-riffs courtesy of Christian Tritsch and PIP PYLE's distinctively forceful and busy drum-work - add to that the creative sax and flute playing of one Didier (Bloomdido) Malherbe, makes for one monster of an album. Dash himself is credited with some solo guitar, keyboards, cosmic-Hedayat-rumble and cut-ups. Gilli Smyth's 'space-whisper' is noticeable at various points (credited as 'wet pleasure shout and intergalactic whisper'). All the material, 2 side-long pieces, is composed by Dashiell himself in Autumn '69, way ahead of schedule for this sort of thing, and hasn't been matched, unless one considers Radio-Gnome Gong as superlative. To this listener, 'Obsolete' is a truly must-have album, and worth its weight in gold.

Dashiell Hedayatt 's first Lp came out under his artist name Melmoth and it received an academic prize for its texts and adaptation to music. By all means , while an excellent album and slight hints at the perfection to be of his second album Obsolete, do not look for a masterpiece here , but an excellent album but a good mastership of the French language is necessary to enjoy it to the utmost.

But tyhe music behind the sung words is also much worthy and can even be at times more progressive than the music on Obsolete (which was really psychadelic/spacey), with superb sax interventions , great kb and percussions and vibes.

Only my desire to remain honest and not enduce prospective progheads into error , stop me from giving this album the fourth star I would give it if I was to hold personnal archives.

Actually some Pot Head Pixies consider this album to be the best to ever come out out of Planet GonG. Without going that far , this is an exceptional album where GonG shines like the sun. Please note that Gong had yet to record Cammembert Electrique and The Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy, but by the time this album came out , GonG had become very capable musicians, and the "Hippy commune in Normady" was gradually phased out.

OK, now!! On with the music and Dashiell Hedayatt: After having won some litteracy prizes for his first album , Dashiell , a poet and counter-culture activist started this project that quickly involved all of Gong but also Beat Poet extraordinaire William Bourroughs - also known for his very influential books, one of which (The Naked Feast) spawned at least two group names: Soft Machine and Steely Dan . With this kind of line- up , one can only expect a total freak-out of an album , and the least we can say is that you shall not be disappointed: in the psych genre this is one of the summit. But also a strikening feature is thaty this is also a surprisingly and superbly melodic album , all this extreme zaniness is embellished by the Allen glissando guitars (at its debut only ) and Malherbe wind breaks.

The musical delire start with Dashiell singing out his hippy lifestyle living out of a pink 50's broken-down Chrysler asa his home in a back court and his troubles for tranquil love-making (this is where La Fille De L'Ombre comes in but we cannot be sure because Dashiell is not so sure himself.....) then comes in the pièce de résistance Long Song For Zelda complete with sireal travelling and ouyt of this world text from W Burroughs.

Side 2 will not give you a single momentsof rest as Gong his only getting warmed up and the side-long track Cielo Drive (Sky driving or space flying if yoiu wish) is the main theme. One comes to realize that this album is essential in the GonG metamorphosis from a clumsy hippy chysalis group (that had recoded the Brother album and signed an energetic Continental Circus movie soundtrack) to a superb and graceful space/prog butterfly that will take off through the RDI trilogy.

Obsolete is truely one of the most important album to ever having come out of France, especially true for rock fans. More than a forgotten token of a lost era , this album belong in a museum dedicated to psychadelia. I , unlike many , use rarely the word "masterpiece" , but in this case , I do!!!!!!!!!!