Flying Teapot, the first album in the Radio Gnome trilogy was a firm favourite once I’d discovered the bonkers world of Gong in my teenage years.
Having discovered Gong through the budget priced Camembert Electrique, I was keen to hear more and immerse myself in this strange world far removed from my humdrum schoolboy life.
So, probably bought second hand at Virgin (for they also sold used records), this was always going to be one which got replaced on CD.
I’m never sure whether David Allen believed in the mysticism of the Planet Gong, or whether it was meant to be a metaphor, a pisstake or just plain silly, but if you can just accept it as a vehicle for the music, it works on that level.
And this album introduces all the nonsense of Planet Gong. Kicking off with the title track, Radio Gnome Invisible, a catchy little ditty setting the scene enhanced by the wonderful sax work of Didier Malherbe. “What’s that in the sky there, teapots that can fly there” sets things up for the second track Flying Teapot. Opening with Allen’s trademark glissando guitar in a dreamy trance, before an understated bass line picks up the beat, and Allen gets on with the mystical nonsense lyrics. A lovely middle section sax break leads into the vocal offering of a cup of tea, before the mantra like intonation of “Flying saucer, flying teacup, from outer space, flying teapot”, all the time overlain by some excellent funky backing. About three quarters of the way through, there’s some grunting and an attempt at a percussion solo, but it’s mercifully brief before the bass comes in and wakes up the rest of the band to lead out to the end of the first half.
The second half begins with a silly throwaway little song introducing The Pot Head Pixies, leading into a couple of minutes of electronic bliss from synth wizard Tim Blake, in The Octave Doctors And The Crystal Machine. Then it’s back to some classic Gong on Zero The Hero And The Witch’s Spell, an attempt to drive the narrative along, firstly with some Eastern style scat, leading back to the sax led jazz-funk-rock which Gong did so well, and into the first appearance on this album of Gilli Smyth’s space whisper, to me effective if sparingly used, as it is on this track. The album also ends with Smyth’s Witch’s Song / I Am Your Pussy, its liberal use of the f-bomb in a sexual context exciting to teenage ears, but a bit tiresome now. It’s not a bad song, the band ensures that, but the cackling grates and detracts from an otherwise great album, which seems to come to quite a sudden stop.
But it is a great album, not for the silly lyrics and nonsense mythology but for the relentless rock throughout. The next two parts may arrive sooner than they’re supposed to.
4* - another flawed masterpiece from spacerock legends.
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