GONG — Gazeuse! (aka Expresso) (review)

GONG — Gazeuse! (aka Expresso) album cover

Album · 1976 · Fusion

4.5/5 · 2024-10-11
FunkFreak75

Now de facto Pierre Moerlen's Gong, the lineup has become nearly 100% French--with only Englishman Allan Holdsworth representing the empire and language of the band's founders.

Line-up / Musicians: - Didier Malherbe / tenor sax, flute (5) - Francis Moze (Magma) / fretless bass, acoustic & electric pianos (6), gong (3) - Pierre Moerlen / drums, glockenspiel & vibes (3), marimba & timpani (3) - Mireille Bauer (Édition Spécial) / marimba (1,3,5), vibraphone (1,2,4), glockenspiel (5), tom toms (3) - Benoit Moerlen / vibraphone (1-5) With: - Allan Holdsworth ('Igginbottom, Ian Carr, Tempest, The Soft Machine, The New Tony Williams Lifetime) / pedal steel (3), electric & acoustic guitars, violin - Mino Cinelu (Moravagine, Chute Libre, Miles Davis) / congas (1,4,5), gong (2,4), cuica, triangle, maracas (3), talking drum, temple blocks (4)

1. "Expresso" (5:58) this sounds so much like BRUFORD (or even UK) with a more Latin-ized sound palette (due, of course, to Allan Holdsworth's domineering guitar tone--which is getting very, VERY close to the one he will use predominantly with the aforementioned bands in the next couple years--the result of recommissioning a new neck and fretboard and overhauling the pickups of his '73 Stratocaster. This is the guitar he will use for the next three years--the Bruford and UK albums--until his move to California in late 1981.) You can hear Allan's new-found confidence spilling over across the tape. The recording sessions of Gazeuse! were 15 months after those for The New Tony Williams Lifetime: Believe It! album--an experience that Allan often cited as being the single most transformative for him over his long career. Aside from Allan's opening solo, the music is very good Jazz-Rock Fusion: funky, somewhat smooth and governed by mathematical rules, with some excellent bass play from ex-Magma bassist Francis Moze, great vibraphone support from Mireille Bauer (both of whom would soon be shacking up together and moving on to help strengthen J-R Fusion band Édition Special) and of course Pierre Moelen's flawless drum play. (9.75/10)

2. "Night Illusion" (3:42) a solid song (with some great drumming) that lacks any melodic enticements. (8.75/10)

3. "Percolations, Part 1 + Part 2" (10:00) Benoit Moerlen, Mireille Bauer, and Pierre Moerlen weave together their tuned percussion instruments into something quite beautiful and hypnotic while Didier Malherbe adds some breathy flute. (Is this what Mike Oldfield heard that caused him to recruit Pierre for his Incantations album and tour?) At 2:10 a rock drum beat enters for a short bit, signalling the percussionists to shift their weave. Thereafter Pierre and Mireille's percussion work expand to cover timpani and tom toms and, eventually, drums. Leave it to Pierre to perform one of the most enjoyable/listenable drum solos rendered to vinyl. I love mathematical music like this. Again, I think this music previews (inspired) Brand X ("...and so to F"). (18/20)

4. "Shadows Of" (7:48) a song that starts out a little lackadaisacle despite Pierre's dynamic drumming and Allan's introductory guitar melody, but then, at 1:05, slowly speeds up into a nice cruising speed with Benoit's accenting vibes and Didier's folk-feeling flute play up front. Then Allan takes over at 2:50 with some of the weirdest saw-like bent-note play. It sounds like he's playing through a muted synthesizer clarinet or a Native American drone flute. Eventually he turns back to his regular (new) sound as he's joined/twinned by Didier's flute. At 5:30 the song seems to end, but then, weirdly, it slowly picks back up, one instrument at a time--sounding as if "Ooops! We forgot a round!" Bass and acoustic guitar here are awesome, but then Allan and the band return to a more BRUFORD sound and feel for the song's finish. Solid. Worth many listens. (13.5/15)

5. "Esnuria" (8:00) an interesting percussion weave opens this one before bass, guitar, and sax join in to coerce some funky rock out of it. Quite an interesting blend of sounds and styles: funk, Latin, R&B, rock, blues, jazz-rock, prog, even a little Canterbury. I'm not quite convinced it all works but it is certainly interesting. In the song's second half the band seems to smooth out and cruise down an easy straightaway but then at the end of the fifth minute they move back into a kind of intricate FRANK ZAPPA hodge-podge weave. I must say that Didier Malherbe's sax play coupled with the rhythm section's cohesive play make for some astonishing music. In the eighth minute Allan's guitar "power chords" with Francis Moze's bass and Pierre's amazing drum play make for the most melodic and engaging music on the album. A song that is up and down for me but very impressive. (13.5/15)

6. "Mireille" (4:10) Mireille was, at the time, Pierre's live-in girlfriend and a very popular human among the band (later to fall into relationship with Francis Moze--with whom she would leave Gong in order to join Édition Spécial--helping to make them one of my favorite French Jazz-Fusion bands of the 1970s). The pretty jazz-bar melody offered up to Mireille is given several renditions and variations within this same song: the first a sparse, PAT METHENY-like acoustic guitar with Fender Rhodes treatment, then a Mr. Rogers/Vangelis Blade Runner-like Fender with Ralph Towner-like filigree-style acoustic guitar (Allan showing that his acoustic guitar playing style was quite different than that of his electric axes: his runs much more feathery, like a scurrying mouse, than the slithery stop-and-go large rodent runs of his electric. The final capitulation of the theme is left to Francis' expressive piano, tout seul. (8.875/10)

Total Time: 39:38

There is so much to this album: so many amazing ideas, such amazing musicianship, so many breath-taking riffs and runs, weaves and solos, so many stunning performances, individual and collective, and yet, at the same time, there are so many discordant and even contradictory or combative sounds and styles that I find myself reeling in kind of "wait and see" retreat. This is the first time I've ever been exposed to this album. While I find myself so often feeling exhilarated I can claim almost equal instances of bewilderment and/or repulsion. In time I imagine that it will all become so familiar to me that it will all become accepted: "Oh. That's just Gazeuse!"

On another note, like The Soft Machine, I failed to ever give this band any credit or attention. This was due to their often-hard-to-take-serious first six albums. I never knew that so many of the Canterbury bands would outgrow their frivolous silliness to become quite serious jazz-rock fusion bands. So glad to be here, now! This is the first Gong album that I've heard that I can willingly call a masterful contribution to the elevation of prog and jazz-rock fusion.

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of highly entertaining Jazz-Rock Fusion from one of the most extraordinary ensembles you will hear.