Gong
Acid Motherhood

This time starting from the cover is not mandatory. Yes, because the album is always and only mentioned for its terrible cover, definitely unwatchable, but no one ever talks about the musical content.

I suppose it's unnecessary to recount all the events that have marked the over four decades of this band's life, with continuous changes of lineup, captain, and musical directions, each time reinventing a new band, a new scheme, a new idea capable of keeping well-visible that red thread connecting the initial intuition and the overall path. After all, the Gong creature, despite all its branches, represents one of the most original and easily recognizable musical entities amidst the acoustic chaos that exploded from rock and roll to today. This recognizability is essentially due to Daevid Allen who, despite the forced stop from 1975 to 1989, invented and signed the distinctive sound that characterizes the multinational combo, skillfully mixing psychedelia, Canterbury jazz, blues, funk, and experimental madness.

Upon his return to the band, partially dethroning the formation led by Pierre Moerlen, Allen resumes his favorite themes and, after a series of records that were perhaps not too focused and of almost total commercial failure, on the wave of renewed general and worldwide interest in psychedelia (understood as a compendium of sounds) lands on this work which, already from the title, makes its intentions clear. Another fundamental clue is the lineup which includes, from the old guard, only Allen himself and Gilli Smith, then the phenomenal guitarist Josh Pollock from the University of Error, and also the guitarist and keyboardist from Acid Mother Temple, the Japanese Makoto Kawabata and Cotton Casino, and the two drummers Orlando Allen (his son) and Dharmawan Bradbridge. All follow the leader's spontaneous industrial delirium, among furious improvisations and more meditative parts, which also draw from the tradition of the land of the rising sun. In this, Makoto's contribution and his bouzouki are fundamental, capable of chiseling brief moments of tranquility in the acidic and overwhelming river generated by distorted and malicious guitars, often the background for Allen's fanciful proclamations.

Exemplary, in this sense, is the remarkable "Bazuki Logix", a dreamy landscape that seems to come from another dimension, or in the super space psychedelic "Waving", a soothing and estranging lullaby. But, indeed, it is precisely the mean and abrasive riffs of the guitars that rage widely and diffusely, as in the swirling meanders of "Supercotton" or in the hyper-metallic "Zeroina". A key track is "Makototen", long, twisted, space, acidic, and aggressive, built on a hypnotic 5/4 riff, providing the foundation for the track's harmonic evolution. There are still a few almost rap declamation passages to mention, with that typical Allen style already experimented with the New York Gong in 1980.

Overall, we have on the player an album that is the epitome of anti-commercialism, demonstrating a consistency that's even harmful and masochistic. I mean, the album is interesting, but Allen, who the heck is going to buy it? 

And now let's talk about the cover, clearly of rare ugliness and bad taste. Observing it briefly and in its horrible entirety, few, certainly, will have noticed the peculiarity of the letters "G", the initial and final of the word Gong, positioned right on the so-called "G-spot" of the female pubis and also that the image is not symmetrical, but the "girls'" hands cross over to end on the other's buttocks. Artistic nonsense aside, listen to it because it's worth it.

p.a.p.