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THE TRUTH ABOUT: Gong - The Untold Story

“Music, art, death, time – they’re all part of the same thing. I can’t articulate it. I’m just some stoned goofball with a guitar”: How Gong became more Gong than ever with latest album Bright Spirit

The most stable line-up in the band’s six-decade history have completed their first trilogy, with new spiritual insight and an old but well-loved guitar style borrowed from Syd Barrett

Louder

“I was as surprised as anybody else. I said, ‘Who’s playing the harmonica?’ Dave said, ‘You are!’” What happened when Be-Bop Deluxe founder Bill Nelson formed an improv trio with Soft Machine and Gong members

The prog polymath felt Orchestra Futura’s performances should be left as one-off experiences. But Theo Travis and Dave Sturt persuaded him to release Live At Nelsonica & Clothworkers Hall

Louder

“Someone put toilet paper in my back pocket and set fire to it. I sat in the sink and fell asleep. The soundtrack to that night was Gong!” How Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway got into prog

Vocalist believes there’s a strong and clear link between his band and Gong: their weirdness

Metal Hammer

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We celebrate Keith Emerson on the cover of the new issue of Prog Magazine, which is on sale now!

Plus Francis Dunnery, Pat Metheny, Gong, Clive. Nolan, Soft Machine, Ulver, Bill Nelson's Orchestra Futura, Godsticks, Magnus Martin and loads more...

Louder

Gong kick off the New Year with video for blissed out new single The Wonderment

Cosmic proggers Gong will release their new album, Bright Spirit, in March

Louder

“There’s no such thing as coincidence. It’s about being in a flow state. Joining the band I tripped to as a teenager… it all makes sense”: Gong may have lost some humour and older songs, but Kavus Torabi says they’re still supernatural

Daevid Allen’s appointed replacement on keeping the spirituality alive without becoming overwhelmed, the respectful use of acid, and the late band leader’s similarity to Cardiacs’ Tim Smith

Louder

"For a song about facing death it's remarkably joyous": Former world snooker champion and modular synth player Steve Davis picks 10 favourite experimental music songs

Snooker star, DJ, broadcaster and Utopia Strong musician Steve Davis picks 10 favourite pieces of music from his vast collection

Louder

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Street battles, invented languages and gigs in psychiatric hospitals: France’s lost rock revolution of 1968

Bands such as Magma and Art Zoyd provided a soundtrack for the student protests that shook the country. Little remembered now, a new book reveals their decisive influence on later successes such as Air and Daft Punk

The Guardian - UK

“The sound universe that Soft Machine opened before me was almost unfathomable. It was a revelation, a musical epiphany”: Meet the Canterbury scene’s international next generation

The seeds of The Wilde Flowers have taken root all around the world. Here are just a handful of 21st-century musicians taking inspiration from the 60s and 70s

Louder

Shangri-La The Shard, London, hotel review

HOTELS: Checking in to Shangri-La The Shard hotel in London, Benjamin Parker found it would be hard for another London hotel to beat it for views over the city skyline

The Independent UK

Jaw-dropping photo captures solar tornado and gigantic plasma eruption raging on the sun at the same time

There's a giant solar tornado raging on the sun's surface, and a researcher captured it — plus a massive plasma eruption — in one spectacular image.

LiveScience

'We don't know how bad it could get': Are we ready for the worst space weather?

Space weather forecasting doesn't yet command the same resources as Earth weather forecasting, even though the stakes are growing.

Space

“A work of towering vitality, a raised fist and even a raised finger”: Gong’s 10th anniversary edition of I See You casts Daevid Allen’s final work in a new light

Subtle touches mark the full-circle moment when Allen – who still had plenty to say – put his band in the hands of Kavus Torabi, and the wheel moved on

Louder

Daevid Allen's final album with Gong to be reissued

2014's I See You, Daevid Allen's swansong with Gong has been remixed and will be released in May

Louder

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Louder

“The conservatism of what’s called progressive rock these days appals me”: The life and times of Steve Hillage, the maverick guitarist who helped shape the sound of prog

Steve Hillage was one of the architects of 70s prog

Louder

“Gong’s appeal? Not becoming too commercially successful”: Daevid Allen bade a grateful farewell with I See You – but he still believed in the future

Months before his death from cancer, he encapsulated his unique vision in a forward-looking album, then left others to continue his work

Louder

“If I were you, I’d get a haircut and disappear”: When author William Burroughs gave Daevid Allen permission to call his band The Soft Machine

A key moment in the Canterbury band’s history came when the future Gong mastermind made contact with his former collaborator in 1966

Louder

“It’s ludicrous a song like that would go on an album at the height of our fame, but it got the most notice because it was so bizarre”: The Police’s Andy Summers on success, psychedelia and working with difficult people

The multi-faceted guitarist looks back on a career including stints with Robert Fripp, John Cale, Kevin Ayers and others

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Louder

“I was shocked when I found out Demis Roussos was in the band. I had to convince a friend that it was really him”: Maxine Peake’s prog adventures with Aphrodite’s Child, Gong, Hawkwind and mushrooms

The award-winning Shameless, Silk and The Village actress finds inspiration in the genre’s theatrics – and explains why she feels it’s a summertime experience

TechRadar

Businesses are struggling to define how much value they actually get out of using AI

A cautious approach and varying priorities is making it hard to measure AI ROI, but UK companies are more eager.

Louder

“Captain Beefheart possessed an unrestrained imagination and a totally eccentric form of creativity… I’d have lasted five minutes in The Magic Band”: Colin Edwin’s prog world includes Magma, Cardiacs, Gong and more

Former Porcupine Tree and current O.R.k. member on seeing Daevid Allen live, falling under Tim Smith’s spell, messing about with plastic cameras and, well, Lonnie Donegan

Louder

“I’d just fed the gerbils and was practicing how to play the saw when this head popped around the door and asked politely if I would like to join Caravan”: Inside the weird and wonderful world of The Canterbury Scene

Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong, Hatfield And The North - how a small town in England changed progressive music forever

Louder

“The interesting thing about going mad is you don’t realise you are… I think I’d become unbearable to live with”: Kavus Torabi’s new solo album brought him back from insanity in an almost religious way

The Banishing is the triumphant result of Gong and Utopia Strong member’s mental battle, loss of his family, support from his friends and a “heroic dose of magic mushrooms”

Louder

“Gong is the band you listen to when you smoke your first joint or drop your first acid trip at school”: The mind-bending story of cult psychedelic heroes Gong

Looking back on the career of psychedelic oddballs Gong, one of rock’s most eccentric bands

Louder

“I’ve never seen a penny… but I’m proud of what we did musically”: Steve Hillage’s mixed feelings on his only Khan album, and how the project lived on after he’d ended it

He’s proud Space Shanty has found an audience over 52 years – but bemused at its collectible status

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