''Camembert Electrique'' ( French: ''Electric

Camembert Camembert (, also , ) is a moist, soft, creamy, surface-ripened cow's milk cheese. It was first made in the late 18th century in Camembert, Normandy, in northwest France. It is sometimes compared in look and taste to brie cheese, albeit wi ...

'') is the second studio album by the

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...

band

Gong A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

, recorded and originally released in 1971 on the French BYG Actuel label. The album was recorded at

Château d'Hérouville The Château d'Hérouville is a French 18th century château located in the village of Hérouville, in the Val d'Oise département of France, near Paris. The château was built in 1740 by "Gaudot", an architect of the school of Rome, from the r ...

near

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, produced by Pierre Lattès and engineered by Gilles Salle. Jean Karakos (credited in

Daevid Allen Christopher David Allen (13 January 1938 – 13 March 2015), 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 (in the UK, 1966) ...

's liner notes as "Byg Jean Kastro Kornflakes") was executive producer.

Release history

The album was originally released in France in October 1971 on BYG Actuel (catalogue number 529.353), and reissued in the UK in 1974 by

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman (musician), Tom Newman. It ...

(catalogue number VC-502), where it sold for 59p, the price of a single, a marketing scheme Virgin had used the year before for the album ''The Faust Tapes'' by

Faust Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroa ...

, in the hope that greatly discounted albums would give more exposure to the artists and encourage sales of their regularly priced albums, although these discounted albums did not qualify for album chart listings. It was also issued twice on Virgin's

Caroline Records Caroline Records is a record label originally founded in 1973. Initially founded in the United Kingdom to showcase British progressive rock groups, the label ceased releasing titles in 1976, and then re-emerged in the United States in 1986. ...

budget label (catalogue number C-1505 also in 1974, and C-1520 around 1976), still at a discount price, but no longer priced as low as a single. In the late 1970s it was reissued on

Charly Records Charly Records is a British record label that specialises in reissued material. Among the labels whose original releases are reissued by Charly are Vee-Jay, Sun, Immediate, BYG, Tomato, and Fania. History Charly Records was founded in Fra ...

whose edition was in print in the UK concurrently with Virgin's. More recently it has been reissued in the UK on CD by

Snapper Music Snapper Music is an independent record label founded in 1996 by former head of Castle Communications Jon Beecher, Dougie Dudgeon and funded by Mark Levinson from Palan Music Publishing. In 1999, Snapper broke away from its Palan parent company ...

(catalogue number SNAP-009) and on 180-gram vinyl by Get Back Records (catalogue number GET-610).

Track listing

Track 1 is titled "Radio Gnome Prediction" on Virgin editions and "Radio Gnome" on later CD editions to avoid confusion with the later song titled "Radio Gnome Invisible", released in 1973 on the Flying Teapot album. Similarly, Gong recorded a completely different song titled "Selene" on the Angel's Egg album. Also, "Wet Cheese Delirium" is misspelled "Delirum", and "And You Tried So Hard" is shortened to "Tried So Hard" on some recent editions. The first and last tracks on each side are short collages of sound effects which begin or end each side of the original LP. On both sides of the LP the audio begins in the widely spaced lead groove (on the original edition, but appearing as a banded track on most later editions), and at the end of the side, the audio continues into the

locked groove The overwhelming majority of records manufactured have been of certain sizes (7, 10, or 12 inches), playback speeds (33, 45, or 78 RPM), and appearance (round black discs). However, since the commercial adoption of the gramophone record (ca ...

Personnel

("Bert Camembert") – guitar (all but 9), vocals, bass (9) *

Gilli Smyth Gillian Mary Smyth (1 June 1933 – 22 August 2016) was an English musician who performed with the bands Gong, Mother Gong, and Planet Gong and released several solo albums and albums in collaboration with other members of Gong. In Gong, she ...

("Shakti Yoni") – space whisper *

Didier Malherbe Didier Malherbe (born January 22, 1943 in Paris), is a French jazz, rock and world music musician, known as a member of the bands Gong and Hadouk, as well as a poet. His first instrument was a saxophone, but he also plays flutes, alto clarin ...

("Bloomdido Bad De Grasse") – saxophones, flute *Christian Tritsch ("Submarine Captain") – bass (all but 9), guitar (9) *

Pip Pyle Phillip "Pip" Pyle (4 April 1950 – 28 August 2006) was an English-born drummer from Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, who later resided in France. He is best known for his work in the progressive rock Canterbury scene bands Gong, Hatfield a ...

– drums ;with * Eddy Louiss – Hammond organ and piano on 3 *Konstantin Simonovitch – phased piano on 5 Also listed among the personnel are "Venux De Luxe" (Francis Linon), the band's live sound engineer, as "switch doctor and mix master". Robert Wyatt's son Sam is also pictured with the band.

References

{{Authority control Gong (band) albums 1971 albums BYG Actuel albums Caroline Records albums Virgin Records albums Charly Records albums Snapper Music albums Psychedelic rock albums by British artists