Nine Feet Underground

Even after the announcement in February that Daevid Allen had terminal cancer with no more than 6 months to live, it still came as a shock to hear of his death on 13 th March 2015. Daevid Allen was a one-off – someone who embodied the most positive aspects of the late 1960’s hippy vision and dressed it up in his own singular world vision – the planet Gong. Whilst his songs often encapsulated this vision with serious messages about the way we are treating the planet or the iniquities of capitalism, he never took himself too seriously. Briefly a member of Soft Machine – he only appears on their very early single ‘Love Makes Sweet Music’ – he went on to form Gong with his partner Gilli Smyth and others.   Gong has never had a fixed line-up – there are even albums released under the name Gong on which Allen does not appear – but for many the line-up that truly represents Gong is the one that recorded the three albums known as the Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy: ‘Flying Teapot’,  ‘

I've been entranced by the Father John Misty track since I first heard it on the radio ahead of the album’s release. ‘Chateau Lobby #4’ is a beautiful song of striking imagery written to (or for, or about) his (new) wife.  The album is equally powerful and joyous collection of songs largely on or around the same theme. Metaphysical concerns link the titles of other two tracks for this week: firstly Dragons’ ‘Food for My Soul’ was first released by Ninja Tune in 2007 though had allegedly remained on a shelf since its recording in the late 1960’s – how it failed to see the light of day for so long is a mystery.  In contrast Stereolab’s ‘Tickertape of the Unconscious’ is from their 1997 album ‘Dots and Loops’ – one of the best albums in their extensive recorded career.  This features thanks to a train journey combined with an MP3 player on set to random. As always the playlist is available through YouTube or Spotify…