Camembert Electrique

This album had just been released as I entered High School. I remember it fondly and so had to get a CD version. My father called it 'Hippie Music', making the phrase a term of abuse. It may be hippie but the music doesn't abuse anything. Rhythms and themes are strong and Gilli Smyth's ethereal murmurings evoke the spaced out texture of the music.And not far from the surface there is great musicianship: As a jazz devotee I realise why I enjoyed (and am enjoying again) it so much; this is free jazz-rock ... and really good too! No surprise that the talented Theo Travis (sax) plays in the latest incarnations of the band.If you remember this album and feel the urge to acquire more Gong I would certainly recommend 'Egg' and 'You' - they take the jazz to a more even-handed level but are immensely enjoyable and funky.

..........and sounding just fantastic. The remastering from the original master tapes has been done really well bringing a more defined, focused sound, especially to the bass, drums and lower registers generally, giving this 44 year old classic a new lease of life.Also included is a reproduction of the original artwork which was not included with the 1974 Virgin vinyl release which is very similar to the booklet included with Virgin's 1973 release of ‘Flying Teapot’. The black and white photo which adorned the back of the Virgin 1974 release has also been reproduced here in colour and now clearly shows the late Pip Pyle wearing stockings and suspenders but somehow, he doesn't look out of place among his band mates.If you already have Camembert Electrique, you can invest in this remastered version with confidence and if you haven't, then this is the time to treat yourself to record which sounds like no other you've heard.Just a really wonderful tribute to late Daevid Allen.

Do you like Camembert?Do you like Electricity?Do you dig Holes in Space?Do you like Gnomes?Do you have long Shanks?Are you Delerious?Do you have some Dynamite?Are you Raevy Daevy?Do you like Tropical Fish?Have you ever been stoned?Answer yes to any of those questions and if you haven't already got a copy of this then get one. NOW, NOW ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!OK finish your spliff first. NOW BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is one of those essential purchases. I had the 59p album (it's still in the loft somewhere). It's always been one of my favourite albums. Ironically the booklet contained in this issue references the release of 'The Faust Tapes' at the price of a single as well (probably the most awesome album I've ever heard - to this day). 47 years after the original release, 'Camembert Electrique' still sounds as alive, modern and refreshing as it did the first time I heard it. I was was always known at school for my taste for the quirky and esoteric, hence I have rather a lot of Can, Faust and Gong recordings in my collection. But this one is just superb. Dive in, there's a more than decent chance that you won't regret it.

This is a stunning album! In my opinion one of Gongs very best after their performance at the Glastonbury Fayre a few years earlier.

Always loved this album. Loved Gong throughout their career (loved seeing Daevid Allen back with the band presenting Gong2032 nine years ago!), but for me, this is their real gem. Yes: the trilogy is grand. Yes: the solo Allen LPs were fine. Yes that Dashiell Hedayat LP was great - Planet Gong too! But this little peach surpasses them all, in my book. I think this is the seventh copy I've owned over the years. Probably won't be the last. Nice Insert and presentation (though 'audiophile' might be stretching things a bit - sounds no better than previous CD versions to me. But it's an easy five stars. Wonderful from beginning to end!

Considering that this album was recorded at the height of the French student riots in 1968 and released in 1971, it sound as unique and fresh now as it did when I first heard it sometime in the mid to late 1970's. Yes, I'm that old (pushing 60 now) and this album is 10 years younger than that, for its release. All the elements that Gong are renowned for are here from the start and I can guarantee that there's nothing else quite like it from that dim and distant era. Give it a listen and you might be surprised.

I bought this on advice from a friend who seemed to remember it was a good listen in the 70's. I must have missed it then and i'm almost glad I did. It is very Avant Garde, so I can only presume my mate was smoking something better than I was. It is kind of ok, very much an album of taste (you will either like it or not), some good, some not so and some indifferent. I gave it 3 stars because it might grow on me..........?

There are so many niche labels for so many niche subgenres of unusual rock offshoots that began to develop in the early 1970s beneath the surface that one can hardly keep track of them, and perhaps the challenge of labeling means that it is easy for fans of one label can lose track of bands they would like from another label despite sharing so much artistic DNA. Consider Gong. Regardless of how one labels them, they would sound as at home in Canterbury as in the France/Belgium zeuhl scene, or playing a RIO festival, or alongside Zappa, or any art rock, spaced-out, jazz outfit from California to New York. Whatever. Camembert Electrique, to the degree that they have an iconic album, shows the absurdity of trying to draw lines between these movements, such as they are, when the point was always drawing connections rather than ensconcing the music within a clearly defined tradition. One can hear equal parts the theatricality of a Henry Cow/Slapp Happy collaboration, a Zappa fusion album, psychedelic, and everything else progressive in 1971 that would have been called left of the dial before the phrase came to define anything (and to the degree that it meant anything in the group’s home?).To be fully honest, Camembert Electrique does suffer from its scattershot compositions, in the same way that their contemporaries did, but that was the nature of looking at rock as it was in 1971 and asking, what else is there? Where do we go from here? It was just two years after Miles put out his own special brew and in that context, fusion was defining itself in some specific ways around that early set of albums, but for those who wanted to say, OK, great, but what about going more out there? Not even just in the avant-garde jazz sense, but in the sense of combining ideas, there was no road map. When you travel without a map, you do not take the most efficient route, but efficiency isn’t the point, then, is it?So yes, Camembert Electrique is inefficient. It is scattershot. It is messy, and disjointed, and its seams show, and the group did not appear to have any clear sense of destination, except that they wanted to go somewhere different and most importantly, somewhere that felt different. So they did.

J'aime beaucoup cet album !!!

Due in october! Got it september 19!!! Great!!! Just amazing!!!

Canterbury prog Rock/space rock. Album che da inizio alla mitologia gong, con Daevid Allen alla chitarra. Lato A con un sound psicadelico, mentre il lato B , più musicale che, si avvicina alla seguente iconica triologia.Bellissima ristampa gatefold, con inserti dei testi. Ottima incisione, album arrivato in ottimo condizioni, spedizione prime sempre al top.

Offert à un ami, quelque peu dérouté par ce camembert sonore étrange, un album fou fou qui ne ressemble à rien d'autre, si vous aimez le rock psyché barjo, les vieux barbus avec des robes à fleurs, zou!