I have to say that this is a very good album. Strong playing, intricate instrumentation, unexpected rhythms and some beautiful staging. Very much a moder Prog album with slightly eastern elements to some of the songs. But it doesn’t have the touch of whimsy, the bubbly childlikeness that I expect from Gong. It is missing the quirkiness of Gong albums down the years. So, I treat it as if it were a new Prog album from a band I have never heard of, leave my preconceptions behind and get into this rather wonderful and deeply mystical album called ‘Bright Spirit’.
From the opening with ‘Dream Of Mine’ it is in a psychedelic Eastern realm. Swirling sax, tablas and powerful drums and mystic vocals.
The lineup here is: Dave Sturt on bass, Ian East on saxes and woodwinds, Fabio Golfetti on guitar and vocals, Kavus Torabi on lead vocals and Cheb Nettles on drums.
The music takes you on journeys, carrying the listener but allowing the passage to take place within your own head, your own frame of reference. Anyone who has experienced guided meditation or a group acid trip will recognize the flow, but even if you haven’t, the music flows and works within your mind.
‘Mantivule’ for example has a guitar solo that wraps around and runs in and out of a powerful, repetitive, rhythm, then leads into an almost metal break.
The album is the third part of the series started by ‘The Universe Also Collapses’ (2019) and continued with ‘Unending Ascending’ (2023) but it stands alone just as well as sitting with those others.
Gong have always evolved, developed and changed. Back in the seventies they became a jazz/rock band with Pierre Moerlen at the head. Then Daevid Allen took the band back into otherness and pixieism. Now they have progressed to a band that is top class psychedelic Prog, and under that genre works really well.
