GONG

Love From The Planet Gong: The Virgin Years 1973 - 75 UMG

GONG TOOK IDEAS AND GAVE THEM A PHYSICAL FORM IN THE REAL WORLD.

Long-promised box set exceeds expectations.

The history of the Radio Gnome trilogy on CD has been especially disputatious with band members crying foul at the French label BYG’s use of unauthorised and indifferent stereo masters over the years. This wonderful boxed set, brimming with outtakes, previously unreleased material, new mixes and remasters, finally delivers on what is the definitive word on this period in Gong’s evolution.

Previously, if you wanted to hear the very best version of Flying Teapot then Virgin’s original vinyl pressing was the only way to go. Now, with access to the original stereo masters, this new edition rescues the glissando guitar from its background obscurity, returning it to its position as a transcendent jumping-off point on the title track. That’s just one of many notable differences that sets this above any previously available CD release. Sonic improvements abound. The three quad mixes of You add yet more revelatory audio detail.

Suffice to say that the comprehensive restoration undertaken by engineer Simon Heyworth – who was there with Gong first time around – and signed off by the band, make these editions of their four studio albums absolutely indispensable.

Bassist Mike Howlett has revisited the live tapes included in the set. Carefully restored, while hardcore collectors will be familiar with some of the content, the concerts spread across eight of the 11 CDs here, five of which are previously unreleased, sound fresh and bracing. The sense of care extends to the hardback book. Its engaging and revealing narrative is relayed through the voices of the individual members.

At their core, Gong were always about taking an idea and giving it physical form in the real world. Daevid Allen, though talented, knowing he couldn’t get very far on his strumming alone, eagerly recruited a disparate band who could extrapolate his mixture of parodic Eastern-flecked nursery rhyme melodies and Om-centric repetitions into a crowd-friendly form. Together they gradually assembled a tangle of scratchy tunes, lo-fi ethereal sonics, and a jokey opus all about consciousness-raising into something that resonated with a larger audience. The unlikely vehicle for this blend of music and mysticism was a flying teapot peopled by pot-head pixies, a Dadaist blowback to Allen’s pre-hippie Beat Generation connections, adding the right splash of whimsy required to make his grand trilogy about spiritual enlightenment palatable to the great-coated crowds of the time and today. That there’s still a Gong going strong, albeit with a different line-up, that’s every bit as vital as years covered here is surely a testament to the potent momentum of Allen’s original vision.