RADIO GNOME INVISIBLE VOL. 3 - YOU

One has to be aware that Gong has 2 distinctive eras: the space/psychedelic progressive years and the fusion years; this album belongs to the space/psychedelic progressive era. They were really unique and they strongly inspired the progressive space rock band Ozric Tentacles. Even Steve Hillage's solo career has some elements of this Gong's style, given that he plays similar patterns on the record here.

Compared to their previous Angel's egg album, the keyboards are more omnipresent, spacy and cosmic here: they are closer to the Ozric Tentacles' atmospheres; The guitars effects also have a key role in the arrangements. There are some sax parts that give an obvious jazzy touch to the ensemble; the Canterburian elements are a bit less present than on the Angel's egg album. There are some excellent flute parts like on the relaxing track "Thoughts for naught", which contains zeuhl-esque voices. Pierre Moerlen uses some excellent percussions of the xylophone family: with Mireille Bauer, he uses those percussions a bit more than on the Angel's egg album, but less than on the Shamal & Expresso 2 albums.

"Magick mother invocation" is the worst track: it is a minimalist, spacy & hypnotic track that decreases a bit the artistic value of this record. "Master builder" and "A sprinkling of clouds" contain the very similar elements found on Ozric Tentacles' albums like Erpland: exotic flute, fast & complex drums, typical punchy bass and spacy & cosmic floating keyboards; it is also reminiscent of the Steve Hillage's Green album; there is even a cosmic moog solo very similar to the one on Camel's "Lunar sea" track, from the "Moonmadness" album. "The isle of everywhere" is a bit repetitive but the cosmic, spacy and slightly psychedelic ambience is quite pleasant, reminding again the Steve Hillage's Green album.

Rating: 4.5 stars