A founding member of Canterbury collective Comfortable Machine, Aussie nationwide Daevid Allen was denied re-entry into the UK in 1967, following a French tour. His visa had expired, marooning him in France and successfully ending his affiliation with the group. Utilizing Paris as his base he shaped a brand new outfit, Gong, with girlfriend Gilli Smyth, bassist Christian Tritsch, drummer Rachid Houari, and saxophonist Didier Malherbe. Collectively, the group delivered a promising, freak-folk tinged debut album, Magick Brother, for French jazz label BYG Actuel in 1970. It completely set the scene for his or her groundbreaking follow-up, Camembert Electrique.
Relocating as soon as once more to a searching lodge an hour’s drive south-east of Paris, close to Sur, the place they lived communally, the band (with English drummer Pip Lyle changing Houari) set about writing a follow-up. Recorded over 10 days in Might 1971, on the state-of-the-art Strawberry Studios recording facility in Herouville, close to Paris, the outcomes – launched as Camembert Electrique in October 1971 – would assist re-define the parameters of rock music.
Central to the work’s aesthetic was a way of merry chaos engendered from Allen’s lengthy improvisational jams with Comfortable Machine. That trait is current from the album’s opening moments, during which a helium-voiced gnome expostulates in French over a backing comprised of tape loops. “You Can’t Kill Me” introduces the basic Gong stylistic template, with Allen’s psych guitar riffs offset by Didier Malherbe’s intense bursts of saxophone and Gilli Smyth’s ethereal area whispers. Elsewhere, amongst additional disorientating intervals of tape loops, tracks similar to “Bin Stone Before”/”Mister Lengthy Shanks”/”O Mom” add to the sense of chaos with dizzyingly abrupt adjustments in fashion.
Three of the closing tracks assist convey a way of continuity and cohesion to the album. “Fohat Digs Holes In Space,” with its atmospheric, otherworldly swirls of sound and hypnotic bass grooves, marks the second when Gong first charted in earnest a course in the direction of what would turn out to be often known as space-rock. “And You Tried So Hard” is an easy-paced rocker imbued with nods again to Allen’s psych beginnings, whereas the majestic “Tropical Fish”/”Selene” finds Malherbe’s sax enjoying an more and more dominant function.
Initially launched in 1971 in France, the album received a second wind when it was reissued three years later within the UK, on Richard Branson’s Virgin label, for a mere 59p – then the identical value as a 45rpm single. With the band having already prompted minor waves with two LPs, Flying Teapot and Angel’s Egg, launched the earlier 12 months, Camembert Electrique was marketed as “the first true Gong album,” occurring to turn out to be arguably their most beloved work.
