SHAMAL

This is a transitional album between Deavid Allen & Gilli Smith's Gong and the later fusion group of Pierre Moerlen's Gong. Though mostly instrumental jazz-rock with a minor progressive sauce, it does actually have some traces of the psychedelic and humorist ways of 'Radio Gnome' trilogy. It does however have neither of the production virtues of 'You' or 'Gazeuse', nor does is have much memorable song-writing / composition. Actually, I'm quite surprised by the ratings here. The loops and patterns on marimba and vibraphone don't do much to me, nor do the poor vocal lines. The wind instruments by Didier Malherbe are however a blessing and the Canterbury style organ's and synths are also quite nice. Pierre Moerlen's Gong would produce no album that I found worth keeping, though I really tried to like this one and 'Gazeuse', because of the Gong name and the good artwork.