Poor showing of postings due to weeks of feeling shit due to illness. Nearly fighting fit again! Anyway, here we have the final recordings by Daevid Allen before his flying off in the celestial teapot! It's a great selection of all that was great about Allen throughout his career from Soft Machine, through to Gong and beyond. I don't know the other musicians apart from Paul Sears who was a member of the magnificent US Canterbury styled outfit The Muffins. This collection has that whimsical, yet instrumentally complex structure which characterised the best of the Canterbury bands. There is even a hint of early Pere Ubu in the wonky synths and playfulness. That Allen was very ill when this was made is remarkable. His voice is in fine form and his guitar playing even better. For me, along with Sid Barrett I have always felt that Allen was one of the great guitar experimenters of the late 60's. His trademark glissando guitar is here, sounding as cosmic as always, but his guitar playing is aggressive, fierce, edgy, belying his years or health. Of course this is a quartet and the other musicians are excellent throughout, but it's Allen's presence which takes this to a magical level.
This is a superb collection of songs and instrumentals and is a fine, final testament to the wonderful, individual genius that was Daevid Allen.
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Nice post Mr PRog Dog and glad to hear you're on the mend!
ReplyDeleteThanks David. It's a great disc. Surprised how strong it all was. A nice final statement from the man. Yes, feeling better. Had a strange shingles related condition which lasted weeks and weeks,
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