On paper this should have been awesome and perhaps it is. The Cosmic Jokers / Cosmic Couriers "ride" has been somewhat bumpy, the summary being that Planetin Sit In is good, Sci Fi Party is great but not really the Cosmic Jokers and that they work best with vocals - principally Gille.
So, what can go wrong? Gilles Zeitschiff should be 100% Gille, the idea is the same as Sci Fi Party - i.e. no new music but Gille muttering over a load of the Cosmic Couriers back catalogue. I listened to this record repeatedly over the past week whilst on holiday though mostly it sent me to sleep so I don't really think I've given it a fair listen. However it has significant promise and a significant defect. The promise is great: Gille relays the story of the Cosmic Jokers over the Cosmic music - it's (probably) an interesting story, with Timothy Leary and all the other freewheeling members of the Jokers playing their parts. The downside is Gille (now, realising it's pronounced Gill-a rather than Jile) is German and delivers her story entirely in German. My pigeon German can't keep up but my basic translation is: Timothy comes with his wife, and they go to the cinema (Tim gehe ins Kino). The rest of it is lost on me - but it seems that at several points they were surrounded by friends.
The record itself is standard Cosmic fare - all whirling synths and phased vocals but there's a bit more to the recycling than previously. The first track is all Gille, then it goes into Downtown from the 7 Up record. The third is a welcome change: A track from (the to be reviewed) Lord Krishna LP - sounding (typically) a million times better than the standard Cosmic Couriers fare. Then, more of 7Up, but with a bit of Gille going on about lots of friends again. Then that awful bloody Right Hand Lover track from 7Up and you start to feel this is basically 7Up but with a touch of Gille.
It finally finds it's feet on "Cosmic Couriers Bon Chance": Gille announces the title, then, finally, some English - I presume that this is Brian Bennett. And what a psychedelic nutter he is - all the cliches come out but it weirdly works: "So we dug that we should get deep into the vibes - cos' that's where it was happening", "So we said add some Sci-Fi to this German high-vibes and we've got ourselves a new reality". There's a weird sense of conviction about the whole thing, so all the nonsense about Sci-Fi/Psy-Fi that's in the book was not just a joke but they were serious about the whole thing.
More cosmic wibbles then Brians back with some interesting insights: "Tim saw the 7Up record as a Mandala. A mandala is not, it seems, an incoherent mess but a form of sacred art. It synths it's way onwards after this and then a lady (presuming Brian's partner) intones a bit in a posh English way and then it's all over.
The essential problem with this record, in comparison to Sci Fi Party, is that it focuses too much on the Ash Ra/CJ axis rather than the more interesting Tarot/Lord Krishna records which are far far better and more varied.
However, the legendary mrowster commented on previous CJ releases that this is drug music and I think he might be right. One holiday evening I walked back from the pub, a little tipsy, over muddy tracks and fields in the dark and the rain, listening to about half of this record and it suddenly started to make sense - rather than being dull and tedious it became fresh and frightening and, dare it be said, coherent. I was half tempted to stay out in the rain and listen further. So perhaps this is the take away message from the CJ debacle.
Listening to the woman at the end though makes me think again: "Timothy Leary is a Love God: TL stands for True Love. Tim radiates erotic energy". Keep it to yourself love.
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