Banana Moon | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | July 1971 [1] | |||
Recorded | January and February 1971 at Marquee Studios, London | |||
Genre | Psychedelic rock | |||
Length | 37:47 | |||
Label | BYG Actuel | |||
Producer | Jean Georgakarakos, Jean-Luc Young; Executive: Pierre Lattes | |||
Daevid Allen chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [2] |
Banana Moon is the debut solo album by Australian singer/songwriter/guitarist and Gong leader Daevid Allen, released in July 1971 [1] on the French BYG Actuel label. The album is sometimes referred to as Bananamoon and it was also reissued as a Gong album. [3]
The album features Allen's former Soft Machine bandmate Robert Wyatt on drums and Archie Legget on bass, along with numerous guests including Gary Wright from Spooky Tooth, Maggie Bell from Stone the Crows and Gilli Smyth & Christian Tritsch from Gong. Guest drummer Pip Pyle would go on to join Gong soon after this recording. Some of the musicians on the album would subsequently contribute to Kevin Ayers' 1973 album Bananamour .
The song "Memories", sung by Wyatt, was initially demoed in 1967 by Soft Machine (with Allen on guitar) and later covered by Material on their 1982 album One Down , with a lead vocal by a young Whitney Houston. "Stoned Innocent Frankenstein" was re-recorded in 1977 by Allen in collaboration with Here and Now as Planet Gong on their Floating Anarchy Live 1977 album.
The original French release featured Didier Léon's painting on both the front and back of the gatefold cover, with notes and drawings by Daevid Allen on the inside surrounding a photo of the band. [4] A BYG Actuel reissue, also from 1971, credits the album to Gong and has the band photo as the front cover. [3] The first UK pressing, in 1975 on Virgin subsidiary Caroline Records, had an alternative cover drawn by Daevid Allen, featuring a peeled banana/moon playing a guitar. [5]
An alternate version of the album, entitled Stoned Innocent Frankenstein, was released by GAS Records in 2014, containing "Unreleased mixes and versions. A 'Camembert Eclectique' job for Bananamoon. Stunning unreleased mixes and totally radical head-altering versions unheard for over 30 years. Robert Wyatt's drumming more obvious on a couple of the tracks is amazing. It does make you wonder whether the correct 'final' mix was sent to the pressing plant - no they wouldn't have got that wrong, would they? With an annotated and illustrated booklet." [6]
In 2003, David Bowie included it in a list of 25 of his favourite albums, "Confessions of a Vinyl Junkie", saying that "it's possible, just possibly maybe, that strands of the embryonic glam style started here." [7]
Gong are a psychedelic rock band that incorporates elements of jazz and space rock into their musical style. The group was formed in Paris in 1967 by Australian musician Daevid Allen and English vocalist Gilli Smyth. Band members have included Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Steve Hillage, Mike Howlett, Tim Blake, Pierre Moerlen, Bill Laswell and Theo Travis. Others who have played on stage with Gong include Don Cherry, Chris Cutler, Bill Bruford, Brian Davison, Dave Stewart and Tatsuya Yoshida.
Soft Machine are a British rock band from Canterbury formed in mid-1966 by Mike Ratledge, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen. As a central band of the Canterbury scene, the group became one of the first British psychedelic acts and later moved into progressive rock and jazz fusion. Their varying line-ups have included former members such as Andy Summers, Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean, John Marshall, Karl Jenkins, Roy Babbington and Allan Holdsworth, and currently consists of John Etheridge, Theo Travis, Fred Thelonious Baker, and Asaf Sirkis.
Didier Malherbe, is a French jazz, rock and world music musician, known as a member of the bands Gong and Hadouk, as well as a poet.
Gong est Mort, Vive Gong is a double live album by the progressive rock group Gong, recorded on 28 May 1977 at the Hippodrome, Paris, France, and originally released in 1977 as a double LP by Tapioca Records, France.
Camembert Electrique is the second studio album by the progressive rock band Gong, recorded and originally released in 1971 on the French BYG Actuel label. The album was recorded at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France, produced by Pierre Lattès and engineered by Gilles Salle. Jean Karakos was executive producer.
Continental Circus is the original soundtrack album of the 1972 French documentary film of the same name directed by Jérôme Laperrousaz. Released in April 1972 on Philips Records, the album is credited to "Gong avec Daevid Allen" and was recorded and mixed in two days in the spring of 1971, a few months before the band's 1971 album Camembert Electrique was made. Laperrousaz was a close friend and supporter of Allen and his partner Gilli Smyth and the film, starring Jack Findlay and Giacomo Agostini, is about motorcycle road racing.
Angel's Egg is the fourth studio album by the progressive rock band Gong, released on Virgin Records in December 1973.
Gong Live Etc. is a live album by Gong, recorded between 1973 and 1975 and originally released in 1977. It is a set of live recordings, studio out-takes and BBC session recordings spanning the years 1973 to 1975.
Flying Teapot is the third studio album by the progressive rock band Gong, originally released by Virgin Records in May 1973. It was the second entry in the Virgin catalogue (V2002) and was released on the same day as the first, Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (V2001). It was re-issued in 1977, with different cover art, by BYG Actuel in France and Japan. Recorded at Virgin's Manor Studios, in Oxfordshire, England, it was produced by Giorgio Gomelsky and engineered by "Simon Sandwitch 2 aided by Tom Zen".
Greasy Truckers Live at Dingwalls Dance Hall is a 1973 live double album by various artists recorded at an October 1973 Greasy Truckers concert at the Dingwalls Dance Hall at Camden Lock in Camden Town, London. The concert featured four bands, Camel, Henry Cow, Global Village Trucking Company and Gong, and was recorded with Virgin Records' "Manor Mobile" recording truck.
Live Floating Anarchy 1977 is a 1978 live album by Planet Gong, a combination of Gong's Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth and the band Here & Now. It was recorded in Toulouse on 6 November 1977, apart from the track "Opium for the People" which was a studio recording. It was originally released on the French LTM record label, run by Jean Karakos, who had previously run Tapioca and BYG.
The Owl and the Tree is the 7th studio album of Mother Gong and was released in 1989.
Magick Brother is the debut studio album by the progressive rock band Gong, recorded in Paris during September and October 1969 and released in March 1970 on the French BYG Actuel label.
Live 2 Infinitea is a live album by Gong, recorded in April 2000 during Gong's European tour.
Christopher David Allen, known professionally as Daevid Allen, sometimes credited as Divided Alien, was an Australian musician. He was co-founder of the psychedelic rock groups Soft Machine and Gong.
Acid Motherhood is the eleventh studio album by Gong and the eighth album by the Daevid Allen version of the group, released in 2004. The line-up on this album consists of a merger of latter-day Gong, with members of University of Errors, and Acid Mothers Temple. It is the only Gong studio album not to include saxophone and to include three guitarists.
Androids of Mu was an English all-female anarcho-punk/post-punk band based in London, active from 1979 to 1983. They were part of a West London squatland scene, alongside bands such as the Poison Girls, Zounds, The Mob and The Astronauts.
I See You is the thirteenth studio album by Gong and the tenth album by the Daevid Allen version of the group, released on November 10, 2014.
Rejoice! I'm Dead! is the fourteenth studio album by Gong and the eleventh album by the Daevid Allen version of the group. It was released on September 16, 2016.