LIVE FLOATING ANARCHY 1977

I was quite interested in how this revived version of Deavid Allen's Gong would sound in 1977. Don't be fooled by the band's timeline, this is no Pierre Moerlen's Gong record! This is Planet Gong, a reincarnation with Deavid Allen, Gilly Smith and a guitar player that sound a lot like Steve Hillage. The band updated its sound to stay interesting for the growing punk crowds whilst maintaining most of is spacey sound-effects. The band even expanded on its craziness, with lots of silly voices and almost no formal song-writing at all. The band also kept its jammy side on the two longer tracks, though with a more punk-based rhythmical approach (in stead of the fusion inspired rhythms on the earlier Gong records).

This could have all turned out fine, but in the end I want to listen to music that some good song-writing to offer along with instrumental prowess. On this album the shorter songs are all arguably weaker then even - for instance - the Gong debut album 'Magic Brother' (1969). Some passages just sound like crazy people acting crazy over a rather dull punkrock background. No song has a satisfying begin-end structure. Furthermore, the sound of this record is comparable to a strong bootleg album and when the music gets chaotic, it becomes just one big ugly woosh. The two longer instrumental jams are significantly better, especially the 15 minute long 'Allez Ali Baba' has some space rockin' moments. This tracks also sounds significantly better.

Conclusion. This falls way short of a live efforts like 'Live au Bataclan' or other Gong live-albums of the formal discography. It is mainly interesting because it offers an album full of new material from a period that didn't really produce a high quality studio album. Because of the lack of comfort in listening to this poorly produced live record I can't give more then two stars. I would however still recommend non-audiophile fans of Deavid Allen's Gong to give 'Live Floating Anarchy' a try. Somehow the price of the vinyl is also quite agreeable in Europe.