Gilli Smyth - Paradise (2021)

Paradise is the final studio album by Gilli Smyth, co-founder of the legendary group Gong and creator of the distinctive "space whisper" vocal technique. Assembled with the collaboration of her son Orlando Allen (Gong, Flamedog DJz) and Maxwell Volume (Homeostasis, Third Sky), the record became a sweeping collective endeavour featuring musicians from across the globe — among them Daevid Allen, Marissa Allen, Micro Cosmic, Peppa B Gritty, Efendi Jaenudin Peppen, Mark Robson, Kavi Samut, Adrian Shaw, Laura Targett, and Glen Westwood.
Conceptually, the album is a sonic meditation on paradise as a multiple, subjective experience. Neither a spoken-word record nor a collection of conventional songs, it moves fluidly between ambient and rock, classical forms and dance electronics, world music and industrial textures. One track incorporates material from Smyth's debut solo album Mother (1978), creating a symbolic arc between the beginning and end of her solo career.
Released four years before Smyth's death in 2016, the album effectively stands as her artistic testament — the culmination of a half-century experiment with the voice as an instrument, initiated in Parisian clubs of the late 1960s alongside Daevid Allen and sustained through dozens of recordings with Gong, Mother Gong, and numerous solo projects.



Tracklist:
1-1 Gilli Smyth - Gateway [2:00]
1-2 Gilli Smyth - Landscapes [3:01]
1-3 Gilli Smyth - Avatar [1:58]
1-4 Gilli Smyth - Taliesin [0:31]
1-5 Gilli Smyth - Whispers from the Other Shore [1:46]
1-6 Gilli Smyth - Truckstop on the Highway [0:55]
1-7 Gilli Smyth - Walled Garden [4:18]
1-8 Gilli Smyth - Sirens of the Overworld [3:11]
1-9 Gilli Smyth - Dark Angel [3:24]
1-10 Gilli Smyth - Paradise Lost [3:29]
1-11 Gilli Smyth - Materasu [2:27]
1-12 Gilli Smyth - Arcadia [0:50]
1-13 Gilli Smyth - L'eau [5:34]
1-14 Gilli Smyth - Quantum [2:40]
1-15 Gilli Smyth - Freedub [5:00]
1-16 Gilli Smyth - Portal [3:31]
1-17 Gilli Smyth - Paradise [5:28]