RADIO GNOME INVISIBLE VOL. 3 - YOU

YOU is Gong at their trippiest. The album consists mainly of long space-rock jams, which give the likes of Steve Hillage and Bloomdido Bad de Grasse a chance to come up with exciting solos (on guitar and sax, respectively). Tim Blake isn't bad either: I love his synths in "A sprinkling of clouds".

The only problem is that Daevid Allen has now virtually disappeared from his own trilogy. We never really find out what happened to Zero the Hero and the Pot Head Pixies; the music only tells us that they reached some kind of high. YOU hardly bears any trace of the funny little ditties which made FLYING TEAPOT and ANGELS EGG so utterly delightful.

As I pointed out in my review of RADIO GNOME INVISIBLE's first volume, the trilogy as a whole definitely deserves five stars, as it's one of prog's happiest masterpieces. But about YOU on its own I have my doubts - let's award it three and a half stars.