Another album from my youth, one which I think I bought second hand in the original Probe Records in a basement under Silly Billy's in Whitechapel, and, having replaced on CD, sold for a much higher sum on EBay.
It's the second part of the Radio Gnome trilogy, and thought by many to be the best of these albums.
It opens with the mystical drone of Other Side Of The Sky, a Daevid Allen spoken piece followed by a smooth and dreamy (that word might crop up a lot) sax floating over electronica, before the rhythm section kicks in with a funky mantra with an eastern feel as Allen chants some nonsense. Sold To The Highest Buddha is more orthodox, driving the story (such as it is) along, with a hypnotic sax theme and run out (Didier Malherbe) and some guitar heroics from Steve Hillage, who repeats the trick with his solo, Castle In The Clouds. Prostitute Poem is a Gilli Smyth song, her spoken vocals accompanied by a very Parisian saxophone part, followed by the campfire singalong Givin' My Luv To You. The first half ends with Selene (a different one to the same named song on Camembert Electrique) a fairly tedious whine ending in some sort of quasi-religious chant.
The second half kicks off with Flute Salad, a flute piece, replete with echo, and a pleasant couple of minutes, taking us into The Oily Way, a decent song, as ever backed up by some top musicianship, and that's followed by Outer Temple and Outer Temple, a flowing piece, with a dreamy (told you!) sax solo over the top, and Percolations, a few seconds of percussive mayhem. Love Is How Y Make It is a hippie tale of love and peace, with a vibraphone accompaniment for the first half, before the band comes in and rocks along, into the (almost) finale, a sax intro, with a driving riff, and Hillage starts to rock along with I Never Glid Before, with, of course a trademark guitar solo in the middle. Final track Eat That Phone Book Coda, is more of a plenary than a finale, a gentle running down to the end of this section of the story.
I find it annoying when record companies add superfluous bonus tracks, which don't fit with the feel of what is a whole piece, rather than discrete songs, and that's the case with this CD re-release.
There's the single version of Other Side Of The Sky, because Virgin thought it might be a hit if they reduced it from 7 to 4 minutes? Ooby-Scooby Doomsday sound like an outtake from Floating Anarchy (which was four years in the future), and really doesn't fit on Angel's Egg, and alternative versions of Love Is How Y Make It and Eat That Phone Book Coda make up the padding.
But, despite my nit picking and sniping, this is a great album, one I listen to regularly and don't tire of, even if, as time goes by (as I do with most Gong), I find the instrumental pieces and breaks more satisfying than Daevid Allen's faux-naive lyrics.
4* - a classic of the Canterbury prog genre. Highly recommended.
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