RADIO GNOME INVISIBLE VOL. 3 - YOU

I might have considered YOU a masterpiece had I discovered it around the same time as the first two RADIO GNOME INVISIBLE albums. Instead, I got this almost a year after those two Gong albums; not good for the RADIO GNOME INVISIBLE continuity.

YOU is much more of an instrumental album than the two that came before it. Very little of this album other than the overall sound, the first two cuts and ''Perfect Mystery'' remind me of the ANGEL'S EGG album, and this is both good and bad in a way. Gong gets the chance to stretch out their psychadelic sounds into well developed jams that at times (like on ''Isle of Everywhere'') sound like precursors to hip-hop. The downside is that tracks like ''A Sprinkling of Clouds'' take quite a bit of time to build up before the payoff theme comes in.

''You Never Blow Your Trip Forever'' deserves a special mention as it is THE piece of the album (possibly the trilogy, but I can't definitively say so to avoid hyperbole). It picks up right where ''Isle of Everywhere'' leaves off with a funky riff until the band needs to space out. This doesn't last long as the band comes back in at blistering volume with one of Howlett's best lines underpinning everything beautifully. This leads into a jazzy thing that keeps building in intensity until Daevid announces the close of the trilogy, and the piece dissolves gradually then.

Get this alongside the other two RADIO GNOME INVISIBLE parts to hear how all three match up. This has plenty of spacey instrumental passages for those that are interested, but general goofiness that originally attracted me to the group is not as prevalent here, and I'm marginally disappointed by that.