You

With the opening tracks "Thought for Naught/A P.H.P.'s Advice," Didier Malherbe and Daevid Allen playfully set the stage for the third and final installment of Gong's Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy. For the most part though, Gong forgoes the song format of the previous album and instead rides the long rock-solid grooves of Mike Howlett and Pierre Moerlen's ace rhythm team. That said, it's hardly surprising that You is Gong's strongest release yet. The mantra of "Master Builder" ignites with Steve Hillage's formidable lead guitar. "A Sprinkling of Clouds" creeps out of Tim Blake's pulsing VCS3 synthesizer, again building into an instrumental tour de force. The second side starts playfully again, before descending into the mega-riff of "The Isle of Everywhere," which is probably the ultimate example of Gong at their best; both Malherbe and Hillage have plenty of room to solo over the hypnotic head-nod groove (credited to the collective Compagnie d'Opera Invisible de Thibet, or C.O.I.T.) From there, Allen winds up Zero the Hero's cosmic adventure fittingly, with the spacious and sprawling "You Never Blow Yr Trip Forever" (sic). Unfortunately, Allen did. Following a bad trip before a gig in Cheltenham, England in April 1975, he took his leave from the band (Gilli Smyth left after the You sessions). The others would continue on; and from there, the amount of music released under the Gong banner would blossom exponentially (a good thing). This album, however, was the only from the band to see a US release. In 1977, Virgin released a double-album, Live Etc., that documented the trilogy era with live and non-album tracks. That same year, in May, the trilogy band would unite (with a host of Gong side projects) for a one-off concert at Nouvel Hippodrome de Paris; their performance was released as Gong Est Mort, Viva Gong! on the French Tapioca label.