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The Latest Breaking News from Daevid Allen

“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

"He was the backbone of Soft Machine." Founding member and keyboard player Mike Ratledge dead at 81

"He was the backbone of Soft Machine." Founding member and keyboard player Mike Ratledge dead at 81

Soft Machine's longest-serving member Mike Ratledge, who also worked with Syd Barrett and Kevin Ayers, has died after a short illness

“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

“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

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“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

“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?

“When we started, it wasn’t necessarily going to be a trilogy… I like the fact that each one is a bit different. To this day that’s the best band I’ve ever been in”: Steve Hillage on Gong’s Radio Gnome Invisible era

The guitarist most associated with Daevid Allen’s band believes they launched a second wave of psychedelia with their 70s albums Chocolate Teapot, Angel’s Egg and You

“Not just an amorphous stream of swirly pothead trance rock… In fact, this album feels more focused than its predecessor:” Gong’s Unending Ascending

With the late Daevid Allen’s blessing, Kavus Torabi continues the 54-year-old band’s mission to music’s outer reaches

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“The universe and self and the inside of ourselves is all the same thing, depending on which end you look down the telescope”: Gong continue a “loose trilogy” with Unending Ascending

“The universe and self and the inside of ourselves is all the same thing, depending on which end you look down the telescope”: Gong continue a “loose trilogy” with Unending Ascending

Kavus Torabi explains the themes behind the band’s third album after the death of Daevid Allen

“My brother was into Yes but it didn’t speak to me. They knew too many chords!” He was a punk hero, while her dad was Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen was her babysitter. How Galen Ayers turned Paul Simonon onto prog

“My brother was into Yes but it didn’t speak to me. They knew too many chords!” He was a punk hero, while her dad was Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen was her babysitter. How Galen Ayers turned Paul Simonon onto prog

2023's unlikeliest duo discuss art as inspiration, Hendrix's guitar and the forthcoming Kevin Ayers’ reissues

“Pop music didn’t offer enough open space for improvisation… there was no way we were going to play a tune the same way twice”: How Soft Machine pioneered the Canterbury scene

“Pop music didn’t offer enough open space for improvisation… there was no way we were going to play a tune the same way twice”: How Soft Machine pioneered the Canterbury scene

By the time debut album The Soft Machine was released in 1968, they’d already split up - but its impact changed everything

Six-string psychonaut Kavus Torabi on the mythology of Gong, Hotel California moments with Steve Hillage and his epiphany with scales

Six-string psychonaut Kavus Torabi on the mythology of Gong, Hotel California moments with Steve Hillage and his epiphany with scales

Torabi plays in some of Britain’s most out-there bands, fronting Gong to playing with Steve Hillage and former snooker champion Steve Davis. We join him on the search for Utopia

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