HEDAYAT, DASHIEL & GONG - Obsolete

"...cult classic album, generally believed by many Gong fans and French psych music fans to be the best Gong album out there. Released as a solo album by French beat figure Dashiell Hedayatt in 1971, Obsolete" offers up a musical polaroid picture of Gong metamorphosing from whimsical slightly clumsy psych rock act to the floating space creature that went on to make Camembert Electrique (shortly after this LP), and the Radio Gnome Invincible Trilogy. This is in most respects a super-secret disguised Gong album, with Daevid Allen and cronies providing instrumental backing whilst poet Hedayat himself takes (mainly spoken) lead vocals. A hidden gem of the bands history. Canterbury historians will also be happy to note the presence of William Burroughs; Burroughs small cameo somehow makes the album shift into overdrive, taking the remaining part of the album "from breathtaking pulsing musical scenery to terrific jams that foresaw the coming supersonic fifth gear of the later Radio Gnome Invincible days: the side long Cielo Drive 17 pips the atmospheres from backyard dreamings to full solar voyages peeping awkwardly out the periscope - with Daevid Allen at his most relentless and Malherbe on a most inspired flute stint waaaay above the music like a distant satellite." Many rate this among the most important French rock releases_¢‚Ǩ‚Äùup there with Gainsbourg and Vanniers "Histoire de Melody Nelson", Igor Wakhevitchs Logos," and Magmas MDK." - Replica.