I was never really a fan of 'Gong' in the 70s/80s but just the mention of this group created in France at the end of the 60s and which had an eventful journey to say the least in the fifty years (I let you consult the well-supplied page Wikipedia), I I was able to stop myself from listening to this latest album released at the beginning of November 2023 with a line up that no longer has much to do with the line up(s) of the beginning (the guitarist and singer 'Daevid Allen' having died in 2015). But, when listening to 'Unending Ascending', the 'Gong' spirit of the beginning is still very present and, for those who would like to dive back into this slightly crazy psychedelic, the album 'Camebert Electrique', released in 1971, is quite representative.
Listening to the first tracks of this short album (only 8 tracks for 40 minutes of listening), we find this psychedelic rock from the end of the 60s with 'Tiny Galaxies' (see the video above) and the very 'Beatlesien' 'My guitar is a spaceship' which also reminds me of the beginning of 'Status Quo' before they found their own way (for example the album 'Spare Parts' from 1969) and the 'O Arcturus' and 'All Clocks Reset' are also in the same style and take us back more than 50 years ago. The other compositions are much more in line with the style of the beginnings with first of all the 8 minutes of 'Ship of Ishtar' which takes us into a sonic mishmash characteristic of psychedelia from the end of the 60s and which could replace any what a hallucinogenic trip based on mushrooms (plus, it's much better for your health!). In another style but still anchored in the psychedelic, 'Choose your Goddess' develops a title in which multiple instrumental arrangements are present with these very typical sonic dissonances (the interventions of 'Ian East' on the saxophone being remarkable). Another title, another genre, the very soaring 'Lunar invocation' recalls the early days of 'Floyds' and to end the album, 'Asleep do we Lay' also shows a captivating face also quite representative of the beginnings of 'Gong'.
In summary, the five artists of 'Gong', after the death of 'Daevid Allen', have taken up the torch and continue to perpetuate this psychedelic, taking us back, for a moment, to the end of the years 60 with a modern sound which should please a whole generation who knew this era and who could perhaps introduce this very particular style to the younger generations, a style which was one of the starting points of one of the most best known progressive rock, I named the 'Pink Floyd'... | |