Daevid Allen — Good Morning
The album found Allen utilizing a Spanish collective called Euterpe for the songs mainly acoustic and mostly percussive-less backing. Here and there you pick out the odd synth texture, the odd hint of glissando guitar/electric, or electric bass line, but mostly this is based around acoustic backing & Allen’s distinctive & wordy vocals.
The original album featured eight tracks in all, and these well fairly short( by Gong standards)- with mostly of the tracks coming in between just over two to five minute mark. The only really lengthy & more jam- based track was the albums last track “Wise Man in Your Heart”, which came in just under the eleven & a half minute mark. This reissue features an extra track in the form of the just under ten minutes of “Euterpe Gratitude Piece”.
The album opens with “Children of The New World”, which is a haunting & a times quite melodic mix of finger plucked acoustic guitar, glockenspiel, subtle synth simmer, and a almost choir like harmony backing. Track number three “Song Of Satisfaction” is built around a rolling & mellow almost nursery rhyme like piano melody.
One of the more electric guitar moments comes in the form of “French Garden”, which brings together a delicate picked acoustic guitar chours, and a more 70’s rocked-out chugging chours. The longest tracks comes in the form of “Wise Man In Your Heart”( which Gong would later cover on their 2000 album “Zero to Infinity”). This track I guess is more Gong sounding with a mix of locked down & rapid glockenspiel percussiveness, high-in-the-mix roving almost funk tinged bass guitar, and spacey guitar trails. Later on the track dips into more spaced-out ambient territory, with Gilli Smyth offering up her instantly recognizable space whisper over a simmering synth base.
Though most of the tracks here are acoustic based, there’s a fair amount of variation from track to track, and of course Allen's play-full/clever lyrics are always worthy.
The bonus track was recorded at the same time as the originally album, but was never added in until the 2007 reissue, and it easy to see why as the tone/ vibe is quite different on this track to rest of the album. The just under ten minute track is instrumental mix of moody swooning string synth work, spacey glissando guitar trails, and latter on a weird cut-up mix of theatrical/ rock stage based samples, and just near the tracks end a peaceful garden field recording with twittering birds.
The reissue comes with a 16 page inlay booklet, which takes in original album cover art work/ text, full song lyrics & a write-up three page write up about the album by Esoteric Recordings Mark Powell. On the whole this is another worthy, and rewarding reissue from Esoteric Recordings/Cherry Red, and while it’s not as vital & masterful as Allen’s Gong recordings of the 1970’s, it’s certainly a well put-together & cleverly conceived solo album.