Daevid Allen

In 1966 Daevid Allen helped establish the British progressive rock outfit the Soft Machine. He contributed to a single album before launching and fronting Gong, an ensemble he departed in 1973 to pursue solo work, although his debut effort Banana Moon had already surfaced two years earlier while he remained a member. Across the 1970s and 1980s he pursued an idiosyncratic, folk-inflected rock style on releases such as 1976’s Good Morning and 1983’s Alien in New York. Further projects paired him with underground rock figure Kramer on 1993’s Who’s Afraid? and 1996’s Hit Men, the latter issued by Kramer’s Shimmy Disc imprint. Allen resurfaced in 1999 via Money Doesn’t Make It and, the following year, added both Stroking the Tail of the Bird and Nectans Glen to his catalog. In 2003 he assembled a fresh incarnation of Gong that incorporated musicians from the Japanese collective Acid Mothers Temple, while simultaneously performing and recording with his California-based group University of Errors. He maintained a steady output of limited-edition live documents and one-off collaborations on assorted independent labels under his own name and assorted collective monikers. The 2006 Snapper Music anthology Man From Gong offered a modest overview of his extensive recorded history. Following a struggle with cancer, Allen passed away in Australia during March 2015 at age 77.