''Camembert Electrique'' (

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

: ''Electric Camembert'') 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. Init ...

band Gong, recorded and originally released in 1971 on the French

BYG Actuel BYG Records was a French record label known for the Actuel series specializing in free jazz. However, the label released a handful of non-jazz recordings by artists such as Musica Elettronica Viva, Freedom and Gong. History BYG Records was found ...

label. The album was recorded at Château d'Hérouville near

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, produced by Pierre Lattès and engineered by Gilles Salle. Jean Karakos (credited in Daevid Allen's liner notes as "Byg Jean Kastro Kornflakes") was executive producer.

Release history

The album was originally released in France in October 1971 on

(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. It grew to be a worldw ...

(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, 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 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 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 (catalogue number SNAP-009) and on 180-gram vinyl by

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(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 is a Japanese art film original video animation (OVA) written and directed by Mamoru Oshii. Released by Tokuma Shoten on 15 December 1985, the film was a collaboration between artist Yoshitaka Amano and Oshii. It features very little spoken di ...

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.

Personnel

* Daevid Allen ("Bert Camembert") – guitar (all but 9), vocals, bass (9) * Gilli Smyth ("Shakti Yoni") – space whisper * Didier Malherbe ("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, Hatfie ...

– 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