There is a moment halfway through “Mystic Sister/Magick
Brother,” the opening track on Gong’s 1969 debut album Magick Brother, in which the band members all seem to forget what
they’re doing all at once and drift out of the mix. They take a few seconds to
reorganize and remember what they were supposed to be doing, and they all start
up again. The moment is both charming and frustrating. Even mid-song, the band wasn’t
quite sure what they were going for. At this stage in their career, Gong was a
soon-to-be great band stumbling toward a breakthrough and knocking over a lot
of stuff on the way. For a fledgling free jazz label like BYG/Actuel, it’s an
unfortunate first excursion beyond its established jazz framework.
