Dashiell Hedayat - Obsolete

Iconic French psychedelic album from 1971. Takes me back to the revelatory moment when I discovered "Long Song For Zelda" on a compilation by Dirty Sound System and realized that there was more to French chanson than Julien Clerc; Alain Souchon & the stuff my mother would listen to in her car. Iconic textured sleeve as well.

That Dirty French Psychedelic compilation broadened my musical universe dramatically back in 2009. I was 15, and just started searching for music off the beaten tracks. That year, some new releases blew my teenage mind out like few records would ever do: Oneohtrix Point Never's Rifts CD and that Dirty Sound System comp. Firstly, it made me realized that those boring figures of Variété Française that I could hear on the radio - Christophe, Bernard Lavilliers or Nino Ferrer - wrote music that slapped - weird, sophisticated, utterly psychedelic and less boring than Pink Floyd's albums I then knew by heart. 

And then it was the names I never saw or heard before that caught my attention. Even these French chanson territories, paced up and down by  annoying parents and uncles, had their own underworld, an underground estate where French eccentrics hanged out with William S. Burroughs and Soft Machine, probably doing drugs. And the most mysterious figure of them all, Dashiell Hedayat, seemed to me like the secret kingpin of this underworld.

His only album, Obsolete, soon became to me the quintessence of psychedelism, stealing the crown from British bands, in my mind, as the lyrics, sung in French, added to my personal definition that layer of surrealism that was missing until then. Considering that all Gong's members are playing on this one could also argue that Obsolete is Gong's best album. But that's just some boomer's hot take... Clean copy. (VG+/VG+)

Tracklist

1. Chrysler
2. Fille de l'Ombre
3. Long Song For Zelda
4. Cielo Drive / 17