Time for the third part of the Radio Gnome Trilogy, another album which I've known for almost 50 years.
I first bought a copy of this album second hand in a long gone shop on Smithdown Road in Liverpool, as a birthday present for a friend (using the £2, which he had given me for my birthday, in pennies, a few weeks earlier). Of course, my ulterior motive was that I could tape it before gifting it.
That version was, of course, the vinyl with the original cover, my CD version is a later Charly reissue (apparently without consultation or paying royalties to the band). It's a horrible cover, isn't it?
But the sound quality isn't bad at all, and it's a great album. Opening with a couple of scene setting tracks, Didier Malherbe and Gilli Smyth offering us their Thoughts For Naught, before the silly A PHP's Advice, we're soon into the main course of the first half. Magick Mother Invocation is a restful drone, with synth noises fading in and out, segueing smoothly into the funky Master Builder, which starts with a Buddhist chant, before a fantastic sax break over a thumping bassline from Mike Howlett, with the first half ending with a long, dreamy synthesiser piece which develops into a fine guitar led instrumental.
The second half opens with Perfect Mystery, a short ordinarily silly Gong song, before the two long tracks, Isle Of Everywhere, where the pounding bassline drives everything as first vocals, then sax and guitar solo over it, a fantastic ten minutes of groove, then straight into You Never Blow Yr Trip Forever, starting with a playful Gong style intro, then Daevid Allen gently bids farewell to Zero the Hero, before the rest of the band kick in with a belter of a rock tune, with some Allen lyrics and vocals which don't seem twee.
For me, I think it's the best of the trilogy, largely because of the quality of the instrumental breaks here. I'm coming rapidly to the conclusion that a mix of Radio Gnome without Allen's storytelling might be a genuine five star belter!
4* - Possibly Gong at the peak of their powers, before Allen decided enough was enough.
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