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The Latest Breaking News from Gong

"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

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

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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

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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

“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

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

Louder

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.

TechRadar

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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

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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

Louder

“Surely it’s the greatest psychedelic rock song ever recorded… It makes the whole God thing seem plausible!” Kavus Torabi’s Guide To Cardiacs

Gong and Knifeworld guitarist recalls his time in Tim Smith’s band via five of their songs chosen by Prog

Louder

“A curious figure as a solo artist… he precedes Byrne & Eno and practically invents Underworld”: Synth pioneer Tim Blake shines in 3CD set Crystal Presence – The Albums 1977-1991

Former Gong and Hawkwind member proves space-keys don’t have to be glacial, although one of the three records here feels more dated than the others

Louder

“John Bonham said rock and blues wasn’t a good place for girls. He wanted me to be a vet or a lawyer… for a while I went down the opera route”: Despite her brother’s misgivings, Genesis helped shape Deborah Bonham’s career

Singing sister of Led Zeppelin drummer had tried to become Gong’s Shakti Yoni - but that was before Selling England By The Pound and Foxtrot changed her life

Louder

“Daevid Allen was always throwing a grenade into situations… Tim Smith was quite benign, although very driven. They both had the same sort of presence:” Kavus Torabi compares his late Gong and Cardiacs bandmates

Briefed to keep Gong going after Allen’s death, the new leader pursues the same aim with a different vision. How have the fans reacted?

Evening Standard

Three quarters of London tech firms missed sales targets since 2022

Three-quarters of London tech firms have missed a sales forecast in the last two years, new data shows, as a trifecta of inflation, economic uncertainty and depressed consumer demand raised the barriers to growth in the sector.

Louder

“Polyrhythms, unusual sounds from didgeridoos to sitars, bizarre song structures, people singing backwards… It’s prog with loops and breakbeats”: Orbital’s Orbital 2 (The Brown Album)

By combining a wide range of genres in a melting pot of musical structures, brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll were closer to Gong, Genesis and Yes than acid house

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