Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Gong
Label: Philips Records
Release: 1972
Runtime: 34:13
Rating: 3/5
»Continental Circus« is something of an ‘ugly duckling’ in the Gong discography, since even the most devoted fans, and rightly so, don’t count it among the classic studio output of these legends of the Canterbury scene. The main reason is surely that »Continental Circus« was a not-so-exciting musical backdrop for the French documentary of the same name about motorcycle racing, which Gong’s eccentric chieftain Daevid Allen knocked out in just two days to make his friend, the French director Jerome Laperrousaz, happy. Allen did the same as on the debut »Magick Brother« (1970) and, for legal reasons, credited all the songwriting to his partner Gilli Smyth.
On the album, which runs a little over half an hour, there was only one new composition, called »Blues For Findlay«, while »What Do You Want?« was just a weaker, less intense rework of the otherwise excellent »Fohat Digs Holes in Space« from the album »Camembert Electricque« (1971). The most superfluous piece on »Continental Circus« was undoubtedly »Continental Circus World«, a mere collage of assorted sound clips from the documentary that, with its engine noises and French dialogue, comes off as pretty dull.
The only two »Continental Circus« tracks still worth the attention of Gong devotees, and the ones that keep the whole thing from being a complete embarrassment, are both versions of »Blues For Findlay«, the vocal and the instrumental, which open and close this short, not overly thrilling studio outing. This is classic, ‘spaced-out’ Gong space rock experimentalism, but with an unusual blues stamp, featuring Allen’s trademark vocal melodiousness, his feisty guitar passages, the cosmic saxophone arrangements of Didier Malherbe and the complex drum flourishes of Pip Pyle, who was replaced soon after the release of »Continental Circus« by Laurie Allan, yet another short-lived Gong drummer before the arrival of the legendary Pierre Moerlen. Amid the space rock psychedelia, the instrumental version has a bit more jazz to it thanks to the larger helping of saxophone, while on the vocal version Allen serves up some guitar phrases typical of blues and hard rock – good fun from start to finish.
»Continental Circus« is the kind of Gong album where nothing would have been wrong if it had never been made, even though as a documentary backdrop it’s not that bad at all and has at least two bright spots. It also raises the question of whether Allen ever really considered it anything more than one of the weaker links in Gong’s rich and stylistically very varied discography. Apart from »Blues For Findlay«, which in both forms undoubtedly ranks among their better achievements, it added nothing worth mentioning to Gong’s body of work, so today it’s of interest only to the most fervent devotees.
Lineup
Daevid Allen – guitar, vocals
Gilli Smyth – space whisper
Didier Malherbe – saxophone
Christian Tritsch – bass guitar
Pip Pyle – drums
Production
Gong
Track list
1. Blues For Findlay
2. Continental Circus World
3. What Do You Want?
4. Blues For Findlay (Instrumental)
