Gong were, without doubt, one of the definitive psychedelic / space rock acts, prime purveyors of supremely crackers trippy shit. I way ‘were’: they’re still going, but nothing they’ve done in all these years has surpassed the magnificent weirdness of albums like ‘Camembert Electrique’ (1971) or the ‘Radio Gnome Invisible’ trilogy from 72-74, which comprised ‘Flying Teapot’, ‘Angel’s Egg’, and ‘You’. I was fortunate to catch them live a couple of times before Daevid Allen’s passing in 2014, and they were as far-out as a band could be: the songs, the outfits, and Allen himself. Even into his seventies, he was a magnificent, mercurial presence, and the reason I haven’t ventured to witness a show since his passing.
‘I See You’ was the last album he recorded, and his late-stage cancer prevented him from participating in the tour. Ten years on seems an appropriate time to look back on it.
It may not be their best work, but it’s still quintessential Gong: jazzy, weirdy, with busy percussion and bass, shifting time signatures and guitar and basslines withy run across one another. If the title track opens with jazz hands, things soon spin into deeper weirdness. ‘Occupy’ comes on heavy and jarring and sounds very like a lot of contemporary acts which meld noise and jazz – the mellow melodic breaks that sound more like 80s yacht rock notwithstanding. And I suppose this is Gong in a nutshell: all over the shop, doing whatever. ‘When God Shakes Hands with The Devil’ brings some trilling flute action, and the seven minute ‘The Eternal Wheel Spins’ is a motorik space rock odyssey with soaring violin and wibbling analogue synthiness. ‘Zion my T-Shirt’ is spaced out to the max and seems to have little substance around the pun of the title, while the ten-and-a-half-minute ‘Thank You’ swings into zonked-out country with a bit of a ZZ Top vibe. It may not be their finest moment, but credit for still trying different stuff so far into their career.
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‘I See You’ may not be quite as wild and weird as some of their earlier releases, and it’s a bit hit and miss, but it’s still got all the hallmarks of quintessential Gong.
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