| GILLI SMYTH |
MOTHER GONG 2006 | |
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The great Unconventional Gong gathering in October 2005 in Glastonbury saw the emergence of yet another Mother Gong line-up, with GILLI SMYTH, DIDIER MALHERBE, GWYO DE PIX, ORLANDO ALLEN with bassist TIM HALL. This band will be doing gigs in the U.K. and Norway in the month before the Uncon, as Mother Gong 2006. Mother Gong has an illustrious history, starting in l978 with the release of Gilli's first solo album, "Mother" (produced by Daevid Allen)....and continuing through l4 line-ups for the next 25 years until mutating into "Gong Matrices" with Gilli's San Francisco band. (CD"Parade"). The Mother Gong band has included Didier Malherbe in the late 70's,the days of the grand Festivals (Glastonbury l979,8I., Trondheim (Norway) and the classic Mother Gong albums, Fairy Tales, Battle of theBirds, Robot Woman Trilogy etc.). Gilli and Didier met in Deia, Spain in l969 and are both original members of the Gong band which reformed after the l968 revolution, and have played or recorded together for years, in Gong and Mother Gong,from the CD "Mother Gong Glastonbury l979-81", released by Voiceprint Records, to the live recording of their set at Uncon. 2005. Both are well known for their original and beautiful explorations of sound, Didier with flutes, saxophones and dedouks, and Gilli with voice and lyrics which all form a well-known component of the original Gong sound, on albums such as "Camembert Electrique", "Radio Gnome", "Angels Egg", and "You",and many others. Didier has had several of his own bands of which the best known is Hadouk Trio, of which the most recent album "Utopies" on the Naive label,is reviewed as..."there is an enchanting quality so persuasive that you may feel like the fourth member of the trio as Didier leads another magical musical tour into uncharted lands". It is a magic present on earlier albums such as Bloom, Shamanimal, Gong Maison, O.K. Friends, and all the Hadouk releases...(see www.didiermalherbe.com for information, reviews, discography etc.). He has played with many prestigious musicians such as Selif Keita, or Jacques Higelin, and with Djivan Gasparyan in the gatherings of master Doudouk players in Armenia and Russia, his preferred instrument at the present being the doudouk, although of course he is also master of the flute and sax....... After several years with Gong, and known as the only woman who has been there all through., as Mother Gong Gilli has had many CDs released, and several books. Her voice has since become legendary for its unique explorations of seductive, atonal or tonal landscapes. She emigrated to Australia in l982 with fellow musician Harry Williamson, and with him developed the Australian Mother Gong, which did several tours in U.S. and U.K. and worked ceaselessly in Australia until l994, when Gilli left Melbourne. Since then she has produced several albums including 6 archival albums for Voiceprint., and the new "I am your Egg" - sharing the composition with Orlando Allen, and Daevid Allen, as on the story album, "Short Tales and Tall". Other works include "Glo" , a techno/ambient CD with Steffie Sharpstrings in l996., and the written "Historico, Politico, Spirito" about Gong. She is known not only for spacey sounds but political controversy, usually in tune with the audience, so gigs tend to be lively and energizing. She toured in 2005 in Norway with Orlando Allen, and the bass player and producer of Gong Matrices, at the Tertulia Poetry Festival in Deia with Didier, and at the Glastonbury Uncon with this years band.... more info: www.gillismyth.com Gwyo Ze Pix has links to Gong way back to the l970's with Zorch with Basil Brooks, the Steve Hillage band etc, and developed a wide synthesiser repertoire, playing constantly during those years. He played synthesiser with the "Zero to Infinity" Gong and was on the mammoth 6I gigs in two and a half months tour in 2001, (a selection by Gilli from the live recordings of this tour came out with GAS as "O.K. Friends" in 2002, produced by Orlando.) Apart from albums and gigs with Zorch, and other bands such as his new band "Germ Patrol", humorous and unusual, he is known for his sound, and because of this has made a name as sound designer for several major synthesiser companies. (see www.zorchmusic.com/hscarr ) Orlando, son of Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth, had a childhood inter-spersed with gigs and festivals, trained as a jazz drummer at Boxhill College of Music, and played with many bands from the age of l6 when he left home to tour with the "Earth Reggae" band and support visiting international African bands. Has played in several aboriginal bands, and has had his ownbands. He has worked extensively as a producer....as on the popular rap CD on radio Triple J.. "The Dynamics of Rapture", has produced and composed several CDs with Gilli Smyth for the Goddess T band such as... "Electric Shiatsu",(VP) ."It's all a Dream" (GAS), recently "I am your Egg" (VP) and notably his own CDs including "Chillum", and the recent "Living Midnight". Left Australia for Europe in 2004 and has been living and working in Brighton, U.K. He teamed up with
bassist Tim Hall (see http://www.glastonburymusic.org.uk/tim/
) at last year's Uncon, a combination which worked wonderfully,though completely spontaneous.
This year's tour in Norway and U.K. before the Uncon means the band will
be "played in" and can revel in an expanded set. The band normally lives in
four different countries, so rehearsing is hard. Tim Hall is a long
time resident of Glastonbury and has had many musical incarnations there.,
including the popular "Silver on the Tree", and the Avalonian
Free State Choir. He became events co-ordinator of the Assembly Rooms in Glastonbury,
produced the extensive Gong Family Tree, worked on Gong website, and
Tribal Voices, as well as albums of his own musical explorations, such
as with "The Invisible Opera Company of Tibet"; with Brian Zero, now "Indivisibles",
and the latest releases, creative visions of technology, of which he
is a wizard.
MOTHER GONG 2006 -Press photos 300dpi : 8 Photos
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