
University of Errors
e2x10=tenure
InnerSpace innerSPACE 7715
The second joyously, paradigm-challenging album from the cutting edge, new-psychedelic, Camembert Electrique-like, personal agit-prop, guitar-strangling, San Francisco-based band destined to rule it's own piece of cheese and give free purple-fur homburgs to the world in the fullness of time. And - it contains a message to YOU! Imagine it's 1968, and you only listen to Herman's Hermits - then you go and see Gong… It's not too late I tell you - it's more fun out of the comfy chair.
This is an album that just grows and grows in stature and contains a couple of my all time favourite daevid compositions. It may be sacralige to say so, but Gong would be a force and a half, not just the wonderful twinkling secret society that we seem to be, if it could but take on board some of the sensibilities of this lot. But hey it's great to have both - but we definitely need both.
tracks
- Iced Tea Overture
- If you are Changing
- Ocean in the Distance
- Ocean Motha
- Olde Guitar Body O' Mine
- Innesfree
- One Mother of Pearl
- Pinky's Party Song
- Good Evening Ned Kelly
personnel
- Prof. daevid allen, Headmaster and Penis Watcher Guitars, very experienced vocals
- Dr. Joshua Pollock, Chancellor, A.K.A. La Bomba Guitar and Rhetorical Worries
- Dr. Erik Pearson, School of Nocturnal Emissions Guitar, saxophone, banjo, foot
- Prof. Jay Radford, Capt. Starfry hymnselves Guitar, synthesizers, microwave oven
- Prof. Pat Thomas A.K.A. Professor Impossible Drum, theorem and spectacular absences
- Prof. Michael Clare A.K.A. Professor Improbable Bass and logic @ private bar
- The Reverend Beth Custer, visiting pataphysician Forked clarinet on Ocean Mother
Andy G, CD Services
The first album was good - a bit different from what you might have expected from the psychedlic leader of the Western World, Gong's daevid allen but this - THIS!!!!!! - is mind-blowing. The opening instrumental erupts in a lightning ball of guitar chords, almost Zeppelin/Page for just a few seconds, before this monster rhythm from bass and drums, cuts a phased path across the landscape as a wicked glissando guitar line, right up front, travels across the speakers, and Barrett-era Floyd 'Interstellar' guitarscapes sear a burning path through the heart of it as a scorching electric guitar solos loud and hard - just incredible stuff and the sort of album intro you only dreamt possible until now. Then, in a few seconds of guitar chording reminiscent of Zappa's 'Watermelon In Easter Hay' (which I could actually imagine being covered by daevid with added gliss), a thoroughly gorgeous slice of crooning songwriting so typical of Allen at his absolute best, gradually starts to build, but the addition of the strong foundations of wicked bass and electric guitar give a cohesion to the piece that, even in his vintage days, Allen rarely sounded so strong doing.
Track three, and thence the whole album, exhibits all the best musical, writing and singing strengths that made the very best Allen works sound so legendary, and the way they use the glissando takes you right back to the seventies. Yet it is this mixture with the muscular polyrhythms and almost Fripp-like searing guitar leads and backdrops that, as a whole, make the album something very special indeed, the combination charged with electrifying excitement from track to track, so much so that, while you are loving every minute of what you are hearing, you can't wait to see what's around the corner. Neither musician has sounded this confident in such a context before, while the quality of production, writing and delivery is at a peak throughout. It's not 'like' Gong - more powerful and guitar-based with a diamond-tipped rhythmic arrow aimed straight and true to your heart - but open-minded fans will love it and those of us who want something that mixes modern controlled power with seventies atmospherics will thrill to it without fail - a remarkable and unhesitatingly recommended album.