You is the final installment in
Gong's legendary Radio Gnome Trilogy, and it marks an important turning point for the band. By 1974, the psychedelic hippie/folk-rock element of the sound that was leader
Daevid Allen's most important contribution was beginning to disappear. In its place was a more sophisticated musical vision that owed as much to jazz-rock fusion as to fellow space rockers like
Pink Floyd and
Hawkwind. Ironically, this is
Gong's most "spacy" album, full of extended, ethereal passages that would inspire future generations of space rockers. The sound was equally defined however, by the jazzy flights of saxophonist
Didier Malherbe and the sinuous rhythms of bassist
Mike Howlett and drummer
Pierre Moerlen (the band would eventually become the fusion-oriented
Pierre Moerlen's Gong).
Allen's songs still provide a crucial link to the rest of the trilogy, though the conceptual/mythological aspect is less crucial to
You. ~ Rovi Staff