SHAMAL

Shamal is an interesting album from a time when Gong were clearly moving on from being the whimsical teapot-obsessed pixies of the Daevid Allen years but Pierre Moerlen's fusion force hadn't emerged from the cocoon yet. Jazzy in places, spacey in others, the album meanders around in search of a cohesive sound and hasn't quite found it by the time the title track plays us out.

Whilst the fusion elements point the way to Gazeuse, Expresso II and beyond, prompting some to consider this the first Pierre Moerlen's Gong album, there's also still moments of whimsy and some New Agey vocals here and there. This is because the album catches the band in the middle of a behind-the-scenes argument, as they still struggled to work out what to do once it was clear that Daevid Allen wasn't coming back: one faction, coalescing around Moerlen, wanted to ditch vocals altogether, turn away from their more whimsical approach (which was arguably so soaked in Daevid Allen's personality as to seem incongruous in his absence), and dive into serious fusion territory, whilst others wanted to keep vocals and a more psychedelic style.

There's a September 1975 gig that was recorded by the band at the Marquee, included in its entirety in the Love From the Planet Gong boxed set and edited highlights of which are provided as a bonus disc on the recent deluxe editions of Shamal, which illustrates what direction the band might have taken had Moerlen not gotten his way in the end: heavy on material from You and Hillage's Fish Rising solo album, it basically sounds a lot like the direction Steve Hillage ultimately took in his subsequent solo career, with perhaps a few more fusion licks to pacify the discontented instrumentalists.

In between that gig and the recording sessions for this album, Hillage and his musical/life partner Miquette Giraudy left Gong; they appear here solely on a guest appearance basis, and it's no surprise that with Hillage out of the picture the pendulum was in the process of swinging back to the fusion supporters. Steve Hillage's contributions here are decent enough but seem a little subdued and distant, as though he doesn't really feel connected to proceedings and has one eye on the exit, whilst Pierre Moerlen's percussion work really carries the album and, to a certain extent, justifies his subsequent takeover of the band's direction.

Ultimately, regardless of what you feel about this shift in the band's priorities, it seems like Moerlen and his fellow fusioneers at least had a strong idea of where they wanted to go musically speaking here, which is exactly what the band needed at this stage in time. Whilst it isn't the best Gong album from a purist psychedelic-Canterbury perspective, or the most polished from a fusion perspective, Shamal is one you want to listen to if you find yourself curious as to how the madcap psychedelic Canterbury group of You became the sleek jazz-rock unit of Gazeuse.