RADIO GNOME INVISIBLE VOL. 2 - ANGEL'S EGG

Difficult experience with this one for me. I first heard "Oily Way" here on this site, and I loved it. Months later and I finally got the whole album, which I found mediocre compared to the Oily Way track. It turned out to be one of those abums that take several boring listens to get used to the album, and after those 15-20 plays it was just excellent. I was hooked on GonG!

The sound is a rich mix of Psychedelic Canterybury, very spacey, flowing very freely with even mixes of coherent song structered peices and pure free willed spacey irregularity.

Daevid Allen handles most of the songwriting, his best being the free spirited "Love Is How You Make It". Hillage's guitar is prominent, distorted to his signature treble heavy sound, used to great affect on his masterpeice "I Never Glid Before" Pierre Moerlen is in excellent form, contributing great tight drumming on tracks like "Inner Temple" and "Oily Way".

The best tracks are in the instances where the band tried to use the tighter song form in their writing. The spacey tracks: Other side of the sky,Castle in the clouds,Prostitute poem,Selene,Flute salad,Outer temple & Inner temple.

The best tracks, the ones which single-handedly would make the album a 5 Star: Sold to the highest buddha, Castle in the clouds, Oily way, Inner temple, Love is how you make it, I never glid before & Eat that phonebook coda.

That's where the album falters to me, the aimless tracks like "The Other Side of the Sky" and "Prostitute Poem" that knock the album down a star for me. (Although both contain some great sections) I just find myself bored in some of the passages in those songs.

A good introduction to Gong, and one of the essential Canterbury albums. Be sure to pick up the other two albums in the trilogy if you find yourself likig this one!