DASHIELL HEDAYAT

DASHIELL HEDAYAT
OBSOLETE (1971)
320 KBPS

Dahiell Hedayat's 'Obsolete' LP was/is a spectacular Space-Rock release from any era. French poet Dashiell H. (not his real name ??) latched onto the GONG commune of the time to bring to reality his artistic vision, presented through the medium of music, of his life and times during the beat/hippy era (not that I'd really know or fully understand), but on the back cover of the LP it states "Warning : This record must be played as loud as possible, must be heard as stoned as impossible and thank-you everybody" - I am no longer like this but the album is still part of my essential listening roster.
Needless to say, if you are a fan of Camembert/Continental Circus period Gong, then this album is totally ESSENTIAL. If you're not, then it's STILL totally essential !! Full-on tripped-out spacey jams full of cascading guitar glissando's and sharp soloing from DAEVID ALLEN, relentless Bass-riffs courtesy of Christian Tritsch and PIP PYLE's ubiquitous style of repetitous rhythmic percussion-work, add to that the creative sax-playing, and some flute of course, of one Didier (Bloomdido) Malherbe, this is one monster of an album. Dash himself is credited with some solo guitar, keyboards, cosmic-Hedayat-rumble and cut-ups. Gilli Smyth's 'space-whisper' is noticeable at various points (credited as 'wet pleasure shout and intergalactic whisper'). All of the material, 2 side-long pieces, is composed by Dashiell himself in Autumn '69, way ahead of schedule for this sort of thing, and hasn't been matched, unless one considers Radio-Gnome Gong as 'further reaching'. To this listener, 'Obsolete' is a truly must-have album, and worth its weight in gold.

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