Gong — The Universe Also Collapses (10 May 2019) 
Location: Paris, France
Genres: Progressive, psychedelic, space rock
Album release: 10 May, 2019
Record Label: Kscope
Duration: 43:02
Tracks:
1. Forever Reoccurring 20:37
2. If Never I’m And Ever You 2:27
3. My Sawtooth Wake 13:15
4. The Elemental 6:43
Personnel:
★ Kavus Torabi (vocals, guitar)
★ Fabio Golfetti (guitar)
★ Dave Sturt (bass)
★ Ian East (saxophone)
★ Cheb Nettles (drums)
⊂★⊃ GONG byl vždy předvojem psychedelické hudby 20. a 21. století. Teď jsou v jejím čele s novým studiovým albem. Patnáctým. Ve všech podobách, line~ups, spojeních, rodokmenech, všetně živých a kompilačních alb jsme na čísle 74 (15+1+1+1+9+11+1+23+10+2). Ale vraťme se v čase zpět.
Předtím...
⊂★⊃ Gilli Smyth — Paní Umělkyně a spoluzakladatelka Gongu bojovala s plicní pneumonií. Její syn, Orlando Allen o tom informoval v roce 2016. Gilli bylo 83 let. Smyth je připočítána k průkopnicím Gongu a měla neobvyklý, atonální přístup k vokálním partům, který band popsal v poznámkách alba jako „spacewhisper“, nebo jejich internetové stránky — „musical landscaping“. Vyvíjela ho s jinou zpěvačkou jménem Zizka Baum na přelomu let 1967/1968, kdy se skupina zformovala v Paříži. Smyth se narodila 1. června 1933 a vyrůstala v hudební domácnosti. Získala tři stupně na Kings College v Londýně, jedné z nejlepších univerzit na světě (mezi absolventy a zaměstnanci této instituce je 12 nositelů Nobelovy ceny). Zde psala politické články, upravovala školní časopis, účastnila se četeb a hudebních a divadelních představení. Koncem šedesátých let se přestěhovala do Paříže a setkala se s Daevidem Allenem, s nímž vytvořila první line~up Gongu; později měl pár dvě děti, včetně Orlanda.
⊂★⊃ Po škytavce v roce 1968, kdy Smyth a Allen museli opustit Francii kvůli studentské revoluci a následně vystoupili s Banana Moon Bandem, se Gong v roce 1969 zformoval. Zůstala ve skupině — někdy vystupovala pod jménem Shakti Yoni — v období července 1974 — poté, co nahráli pro Gong oslavnou space~rockovou exkurzi albem „You“.
⊂★⊃ V roce 1978 Gilli vydala sólové album „Mother“ a poté založila nový soubor, známý jako Mother Gong. Skupina hrála na hlavní scéně Glastonbury festivalu ve Velké Británii v letech 1979 a 1981. V roce 1982 se přestěhovala do Austrálie a sestavila další line~up „Mother Gong“; v jednu chvíli skupina předskakovala pro Boba Dylana.
⊂★⊃ Později, v roce 1994 se sešla s originálním Gongem a v následujících letech se pustila se do mnoha společných cest. Smyth také přijala techno hudbu poté, co se dozvěděla, že její hlas byl převzorkován některými umělci, kteří ji nedokázali ocenit, což ji vedlo k vytvoření vlastních projektů — „Goddess Trance (album „Goddess Trance“; 1996 / Gilli Smyth, Nick Spacetree, Orlando Allen, Tony Wandella a Goddess T (album „Electric Shiatsu“; 1999 ve stejném složení)“. Současně pokračovala na turné s Gongem a objevila se i na posledním vystoupení Gongu v roce 2012. Další spoluzakládající člen Gongu, Daevid Allen, zemřel na rakovinu ve věku 77 let v roce 2015.
⊂★⊃ „Její jedinečná divadelní přítomnost a vokály projevené a odhodlaně představovaly životně důležitý ženský princip v rámci Gongového vesmíru,“ napsala skupina ve svém prohlášení.
A současnost...
⊂★⊃ Album vzniklo v návaznosti na úspěch alba 2016, „Rejoice ! I’m Dead !“, což bylo ve vývoji Gongu přechodové album a bylo příležitostí rozloučit se s velkým Daevidem Allenem. „The Universe Also Collapses“ je sound Gongu model 2019, jako předvojová psychedelie 21. století; propulzivní, mystický a extatický. Po uplynulých dvou letech putování po světě, včetně koncertování v Japonsku s psychologickou legendou Steve Hillagem, na několika hlavních evropských festivalech získala skupina srdce jak tradičních, tak moderních fans. Během této cesty se Gong ponořil ještě hlouběji do skutečně psychedelické, průzkumné a rozvíjející se strany hudby a vytvořil album, které odráží jejich zkušenosti. Frontman Kavus Torabi vysvětluje koncept za novým materiálem „Lyricky to lze shrnout frází „Remember there is only now“, která byla původně pracovním názvem! Všechno se děje najednou a vždy to tak bude. Je to jen tohle a právě teď. Je to status o tom, že skupina je součástí dlouhodobého Gong~kontinua, tady a teď jako Gong v roce 2019, ale také zrození a smrt vesmíru. Velký třesk a případné zhroucení vesmíru a vše mezi tím se děje ve stejném okamžiku. V tomto okamžiku. Čas je iluze. To vše máme a je to krásné.“
⊂★⊃ The vanguards of 20th and 21st century psychedelic music lead the way with new studio album. Following the success of their 2016 album, ‘Rejoice ! I’m Dead !’, which was a transitional album in the evolution of Gong and was an opportunity to say goodbye to the great Daevid Allen, the current formation of Gong are releasing an album for them. ‘The Universe Also Collapses’ is the sound of Gong in 2019, as vanguards of 21st century psychedelia; propulsive, mystical and ecstatic.
⊂★⊃ Having spent the past two years touring the world, including dates in Japan with psych legend Steve Hillage, multiple headline European tours and festivals, the band have won the hearts of both traditional and modern Gong fanbases. During this live journey, Gong have delved further into the truly psychedelic, exploratory and mind~expanding side of the music, and have created an album which reflects their experience. Frontman Kavus Torabi explains the concept behind the new material “Lyrically it can be summed up with the phrase ‘Remember there is only now’, which was originally the working title! Everything is happening at once and always will be. There is only this and there is only now. This is both a statement about where the band is at, being part of the long Gong continuum but being here and now as Gong in 2019 but the birth and death of the universe too. The Big bang and the eventual collapse of the Universe and everything in between is all happening in the same instant. In this very moment. Time is an illusion. All we have it this and it is beautiful.”
⊂★⊃ Torabi and bandmates Fabio Golfetti (guitar), Dave Sturt (bass), Ian East (saxophone) and Cheb Nettles (drums) have taken that unspoken instruction to heart on The Universe Also Collapses. Where Gong’s wilfully erratic path has stopped off at pulsing space rock, pot~headed whimsy, needle~sharp fusion and all points in between, the new album is an undiluted psychedelic experience.
⊂★⊃ “We wanted to put Gong back at the heart of being an absolutely psychedelic band,” says Kavus. “From the start we wanted to make delirious, psychedelic, head music that you could actually dance to! It’s not a prog record, it's not a jazz fusion record — it’s a psychedelic record.”
⊂★⊃ It’s no coincidence that The Universe Also Collapses feels like a trip, in the true sense. Its four tracks ebb and flow, bend and warp, fold in on themselves then open out in a dazzling display of sound and imagery. This is the lysergic experience recreated in musical form.
⊂★⊃ “We consciously wanted it to sound like a big musical revelation. Let it have everything: the build~up, the bliss, the dark voyage of the soul, the epiphany,” explains Kavus.
⊂★⊃ This approach is embodied in opening track, “Forever Reoccurring”, an epic 20~minute song~come~sonic exploration that consciously upends conventional notions of time and space.
⊂★⊃ “That song started off with this one riff,” explains Kavus. “One thing Gong is good at is stretching a riff out, so we did that for a while, and we thought, ‘What if this just grew and grew? This might make a brilliant opening song.’”
⊂★⊃ That same instinctive approach shaped the other tracks that make up the album. Gong had amassed more than 30 potential songs, but they decided to focus on the very first three they’d written: the jagged yet spiralling “If Never I’m And Ever You”, the alternately turbulent and blissful 13~minute mindscape “My Sawtooth Wake”, and the revelatory finale “The Elemental”.
⊂★⊃ “As the Buddha says, ‘Where there is choice there is misery, where there is clarity there is no choice.’ We said, ‘Let’s just take the first three and develop them,’” explains Kavus.
⊂★⊃ The Universes Also Collapses isn’t a concept album (“That suggests there’s a narrative,” says Kavus) but there is an over~arching theme that binds it together, best expressed in one of the opening track’s key lines: “All the moments that make up a life/Forever at once reoccurring. The idea stems from a realisation I had that everything is happening at once,” says Kavus. “Our experiences of time as a linear thing is merely because we’re trapped in these funny bodies that experience it that way. But everything is happening at once — there’s no such thing as time. It’s an illusion. The idea is that the Big Bang and the inevitable collapse of the universe is all happening in the same instant — the here and now,” he continues. “All we have is this single moment, and everything that has happened or ever will happen is happening within it.”
⊂★⊃ This theme flickers through The Universe Also Collapses’ three other tracks like tracer lines. Lyrical and musical moments reappear, reflecting an ever~shifting kaleidoscope of experience. “Like an acid trip, themes keep coming back,” says Kavus.
⊂★⊃ Throughout their career, Gong have simultaneously been a reflection of, and a reaction to, the real world. The Universe Also Collapses doesn’t so much provide solace from these crazy times as put them in a proper perspective — one that makes them look very, very insignificant.
⊂★⊃ “Post~internet, post~social media, I don’t know what the real world is,” says Kavus. “I’m with the author Robert Anton Wilson — the real world is only your own reality tunnel. Everybody might be projecting their reality tunnel, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it's mine or yours or whatever. My reality tunnel is Gong, and it is psychedelic music. That's the world I want to live in, and it’s a great world to live in. But Daevid saw Gong as a radical force for good. I'm always aware of that.”
⊂★⊃ Even four years after his death, Daevid Allen’s presence is inextricably bound up with Gong. But where Rejoice! I’m Dead! was undeniably a tribute to their departed colleague, The Universe Also Collapses marks a new chapter.
⊂★⊃ “Gong was Daevid’s vision, but he didn’t want his vision to be buried with him in the grave,” says Kavus. “He always wanted it to carry on, with him or without him. Daevid always said that Gong is a ship that you get on and off and it’s up to whoever is on the ship to take it wherever they want to.
⊂★⊃ “With this one it was very much, Let’s make the record that we want to make. No guests or anything. We’re legitimately Gong, let's make our album’,” he continues “If there’s stuff on there that doesn’t sound like what people think Gong is, well, we’re not going to pretend we’re in 1974, this is 2019. This is very much us going, ‘If we’re following Daevid’s idea, then we are Gong and we have made this on our own terms.’ We are Gong and this is what Gong is.”
⊂★⊃ Gong have never been a spiritual band in the glib sense of the word. But wherever Daevid Allen is now, he would be proud of the latest evolutionary step being taken by the entity that he helped will into being.
⊂★⊃ “He just wanted Gong to carry on. That his idea wouldn’t die with his body.” says Kavus emphatically. “And he would love that it’s gone back to being really psychedelic again.”
⊂★⊃ But then Daevid Allen isn’t really gone. Like Gong — like everyone who has ever listened or ever will listen to them — he exists at all points, everywhere, at the same time. As the mantra~like closing words of The Universe Also Collapses’ final track, “The Elemental”, put it: “Remember, there is only now…”
Label: http://kscopemusic.com/artists/gong/
Website: https://planetgong.co.uk/
Gong
⊃ Magick Brother (1970)
⊃ Camembert Electrique (1971)
⊃ Continental Circus (1972) (soundtrack)
⊃ Flying Teapot (1973)
⊃ Angel’s Egg (1973)
⊃ You (1974)
⊃ Shamal (1976) (without Daevid Allen)*
⊃ Shapeshifter (1992)
⊃ Zero to Infinity (2000)
⊃ Acid Motherhood (2004)
⊃ 2032 (2009)
⊃ I See You (2014)
⊃ Rejoice! I’m Dead! (2016) (post~Daevid Allen)
⊃ The Universe Also Collapses (2019)
* Usually regarded as a transitional album between Daevid Allen’s incarnation of the band and the Pierre Moerlen~led fusion line~up of the late 1970s.
______________________________________________
Genres: Progressive, psychedelic, space rock
Album release: 10 May, 2019
Record Label: Kscope
Duration: 43:02
Tracks:
1. Forever Reoccurring 20:37
2. If Never I’m And Ever You 2:27
3. My Sawtooth Wake 13:15
4. The Elemental 6:43
Personnel:
★ Kavus Torabi (vocals, guitar)
★ Fabio Golfetti (guitar)
★ Dave Sturt (bass)
★ Ian East (saxophone)
★ Cheb Nettles (drums)
⊂★⊃ GONG byl vždy předvojem psychedelické hudby 20. a 21. století. Teď jsou v jejím čele s novým studiovým albem. Patnáctým. Ve všech podobách, line~ups, spojeních, rodokmenech, všetně živých a kompilačních alb jsme na čísle 74 (15+1+1+1+9+11+1+23+10+2). Ale vraťme se v čase zpět.
Předtím...
⊂★⊃ Gilli Smyth — Paní Umělkyně a spoluzakladatelka Gongu bojovala s plicní pneumonií. Její syn, Orlando Allen o tom informoval v roce 2016. Gilli bylo 83 let. Smyth je připočítána k průkopnicím Gongu a měla neobvyklý, atonální přístup k vokálním partům, který band popsal v poznámkách alba jako „spacewhisper“, nebo jejich internetové stránky — „musical landscaping“. Vyvíjela ho s jinou zpěvačkou jménem Zizka Baum na přelomu let 1967/1968, kdy se skupina zformovala v Paříži. Smyth se narodila 1. června 1933 a vyrůstala v hudební domácnosti. Získala tři stupně na Kings College v Londýně, jedné z nejlepších univerzit na světě (mezi absolventy a zaměstnanci této instituce je 12 nositelů Nobelovy ceny). Zde psala politické články, upravovala školní časopis, účastnila se četeb a hudebních a divadelních představení. Koncem šedesátých let se přestěhovala do Paříže a setkala se s Daevidem Allenem, s nímž vytvořila první line~up Gongu; později měl pár dvě děti, včetně Orlanda.
⊂★⊃ Po škytavce v roce 1968, kdy Smyth a Allen museli opustit Francii kvůli studentské revoluci a následně vystoupili s Banana Moon Bandem, se Gong v roce 1969 zformoval. Zůstala ve skupině — někdy vystupovala pod jménem Shakti Yoni — v období července 1974 — poté, co nahráli pro Gong oslavnou space~rockovou exkurzi albem „You“.
⊂★⊃ V roce 1978 Gilli vydala sólové album „Mother“ a poté založila nový soubor, známý jako Mother Gong. Skupina hrála na hlavní scéně Glastonbury festivalu ve Velké Británii v letech 1979 a 1981. V roce 1982 se přestěhovala do Austrálie a sestavila další line~up „Mother Gong“; v jednu chvíli skupina předskakovala pro Boba Dylana.
⊂★⊃ Později, v roce 1994 se sešla s originálním Gongem a v následujících letech se pustila se do mnoha společných cest. Smyth také přijala techno hudbu poté, co se dozvěděla, že její hlas byl převzorkován některými umělci, kteří ji nedokázali ocenit, což ji vedlo k vytvoření vlastních projektů — „Goddess Trance (album „Goddess Trance“; 1996 / Gilli Smyth, Nick Spacetree, Orlando Allen, Tony Wandella a Goddess T (album „Electric Shiatsu“; 1999 ve stejném složení)“. Současně pokračovala na turné s Gongem a objevila se i na posledním vystoupení Gongu v roce 2012. Další spoluzakládající člen Gongu, Daevid Allen, zemřel na rakovinu ve věku 77 let v roce 2015.
⊂★⊃ „Její jedinečná divadelní přítomnost a vokály projevené a odhodlaně představovaly životně důležitý ženský princip v rámci Gongového vesmíru,“ napsala skupina ve svém prohlášení.
A současnost...
⊂★⊃ Album vzniklo v návaznosti na úspěch alba 2016, „Rejoice ! I’m Dead !“, což bylo ve vývoji Gongu přechodové album a bylo příležitostí rozloučit se s velkým Daevidem Allenem. „The Universe Also Collapses“ je sound Gongu model 2019, jako předvojová psychedelie 21. století; propulzivní, mystický a extatický. Po uplynulých dvou letech putování po světě, včetně koncertování v Japonsku s psychologickou legendou Steve Hillagem, na několika hlavních evropských festivalech získala skupina srdce jak tradičních, tak moderních fans. Během této cesty se Gong ponořil ještě hlouběji do skutečně psychedelické, průzkumné a rozvíjející se strany hudby a vytvořil album, které odráží jejich zkušenosti. Frontman Kavus Torabi vysvětluje koncept za novým materiálem „Lyricky to lze shrnout frází „Remember there is only now“, která byla původně pracovním názvem! Všechno se děje najednou a vždy to tak bude. Je to jen tohle a právě teď. Je to status o tom, že skupina je součástí dlouhodobého Gong~kontinua, tady a teď jako Gong v roce 2019, ale také zrození a smrt vesmíru. Velký třesk a případné zhroucení vesmíru a vše mezi tím se děje ve stejném okamžiku. V tomto okamžiku. Čas je iluze. To vše máme a je to krásné.“
⊂★⊃ The vanguards of 20th and 21st century psychedelic music lead the way with new studio album. Following the success of their 2016 album, ‘Rejoice ! I’m Dead !’, which was a transitional album in the evolution of Gong and was an opportunity to say goodbye to the great Daevid Allen, the current formation of Gong are releasing an album for them. ‘The Universe Also Collapses’ is the sound of Gong in 2019, as vanguards of 21st century psychedelia; propulsive, mystical and ecstatic.
⊂★⊃ Having spent the past two years touring the world, including dates in Japan with psych legend Steve Hillage, multiple headline European tours and festivals, the band have won the hearts of both traditional and modern Gong fanbases. During this live journey, Gong have delved further into the truly psychedelic, exploratory and mind~expanding side of the music, and have created an album which reflects their experience. Frontman Kavus Torabi explains the concept behind the new material “Lyrically it can be summed up with the phrase ‘Remember there is only now’, which was originally the working title! Everything is happening at once and always will be. There is only this and there is only now. This is both a statement about where the band is at, being part of the long Gong continuum but being here and now as Gong in 2019 but the birth and death of the universe too. The Big bang and the eventual collapse of the Universe and everything in between is all happening in the same instant. In this very moment. Time is an illusion. All we have it this and it is beautiful.”
⊂★⊃ Torabi and bandmates Fabio Golfetti (guitar), Dave Sturt (bass), Ian East (saxophone) and Cheb Nettles (drums) have taken that unspoken instruction to heart on The Universe Also Collapses. Where Gong’s wilfully erratic path has stopped off at pulsing space rock, pot~headed whimsy, needle~sharp fusion and all points in between, the new album is an undiluted psychedelic experience.
⊂★⊃ “We wanted to put Gong back at the heart of being an absolutely psychedelic band,” says Kavus. “From the start we wanted to make delirious, psychedelic, head music that you could actually dance to! It’s not a prog record, it's not a jazz fusion record — it’s a psychedelic record.”
⊂★⊃ It’s no coincidence that The Universe Also Collapses feels like a trip, in the true sense. Its four tracks ebb and flow, bend and warp, fold in on themselves then open out in a dazzling display of sound and imagery. This is the lysergic experience recreated in musical form.
⊂★⊃ “We consciously wanted it to sound like a big musical revelation. Let it have everything: the build~up, the bliss, the dark voyage of the soul, the epiphany,” explains Kavus.
⊂★⊃ This approach is embodied in opening track, “Forever Reoccurring”, an epic 20~minute song~come~sonic exploration that consciously upends conventional notions of time and space.
⊂★⊃ “That song started off with this one riff,” explains Kavus. “One thing Gong is good at is stretching a riff out, so we did that for a while, and we thought, ‘What if this just grew and grew? This might make a brilliant opening song.’”
⊂★⊃ That same instinctive approach shaped the other tracks that make up the album. Gong had amassed more than 30 potential songs, but they decided to focus on the very first three they’d written: the jagged yet spiralling “If Never I’m And Ever You”, the alternately turbulent and blissful 13~minute mindscape “My Sawtooth Wake”, and the revelatory finale “The Elemental”.
⊂★⊃ “As the Buddha says, ‘Where there is choice there is misery, where there is clarity there is no choice.’ We said, ‘Let’s just take the first three and develop them,’” explains Kavus.
⊂★⊃ The Universes Also Collapses isn’t a concept album (“That suggests there’s a narrative,” says Kavus) but there is an over~arching theme that binds it together, best expressed in one of the opening track’s key lines: “All the moments that make up a life/Forever at once reoccurring. The idea stems from a realisation I had that everything is happening at once,” says Kavus. “Our experiences of time as a linear thing is merely because we’re trapped in these funny bodies that experience it that way. But everything is happening at once — there’s no such thing as time. It’s an illusion. The idea is that the Big Bang and the inevitable collapse of the universe is all happening in the same instant — the here and now,” he continues. “All we have is this single moment, and everything that has happened or ever will happen is happening within it.”
⊂★⊃ This theme flickers through The Universe Also Collapses’ three other tracks like tracer lines. Lyrical and musical moments reappear, reflecting an ever~shifting kaleidoscope of experience. “Like an acid trip, themes keep coming back,” says Kavus.
⊂★⊃ Throughout their career, Gong have simultaneously been a reflection of, and a reaction to, the real world. The Universe Also Collapses doesn’t so much provide solace from these crazy times as put them in a proper perspective — one that makes them look very, very insignificant.
⊂★⊃ “Post~internet, post~social media, I don’t know what the real world is,” says Kavus. “I’m with the author Robert Anton Wilson — the real world is only your own reality tunnel. Everybody might be projecting their reality tunnel, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it's mine or yours or whatever. My reality tunnel is Gong, and it is psychedelic music. That's the world I want to live in, and it’s a great world to live in. But Daevid saw Gong as a radical force for good. I'm always aware of that.”
⊂★⊃ Even four years after his death, Daevid Allen’s presence is inextricably bound up with Gong. But where Rejoice! I’m Dead! was undeniably a tribute to their departed colleague, The Universe Also Collapses marks a new chapter.
⊂★⊃ “Gong was Daevid’s vision, but he didn’t want his vision to be buried with him in the grave,” says Kavus. “He always wanted it to carry on, with him or without him. Daevid always said that Gong is a ship that you get on and off and it’s up to whoever is on the ship to take it wherever they want to.
⊂★⊃ “With this one it was very much, Let’s make the record that we want to make. No guests or anything. We’re legitimately Gong, let's make our album’,” he continues “If there’s stuff on there that doesn’t sound like what people think Gong is, well, we’re not going to pretend we’re in 1974, this is 2019. This is very much us going, ‘If we’re following Daevid’s idea, then we are Gong and we have made this on our own terms.’ We are Gong and this is what Gong is.”
⊂★⊃ Gong have never been a spiritual band in the glib sense of the word. But wherever Daevid Allen is now, he would be proud of the latest evolutionary step being taken by the entity that he helped will into being.
⊂★⊃ “He just wanted Gong to carry on. That his idea wouldn’t die with his body.” says Kavus emphatically. “And he would love that it’s gone back to being really psychedelic again.”
⊂★⊃ But then Daevid Allen isn’t really gone. Like Gong — like everyone who has ever listened or ever will listen to them — he exists at all points, everywhere, at the same time. As the mantra~like closing words of The Universe Also Collapses’ final track, “The Elemental”, put it: “Remember, there is only now…”
Label: http://kscopemusic.com/artists/gong/
Website: https://planetgong.co.uk/
Gong
⊃ Magick Brother (1970)
⊃ Camembert Electrique (1971)
⊃ Continental Circus (1972) (soundtrack)
⊃ Flying Teapot (1973)
⊃ Angel’s Egg (1973)
⊃ You (1974)
⊃ Shamal (1976) (without Daevid Allen)*
⊃ Shapeshifter (1992)
⊃ Zero to Infinity (2000)
⊃ Acid Motherhood (2004)
⊃ 2032 (2009)
⊃ I See You (2014)
⊃ Rejoice! I’m Dead! (2016) (post~Daevid Allen)
⊃ The Universe Also Collapses (2019)
* Usually regarded as a transitional album between Daevid Allen’s incarnation of the band and the Pierre Moerlen~led fusion line~up of the late 1970s.
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