
Wednesday 16 November - LEICESTER, 02 Academy2
Thursday 17 November - BRIGHTON, Concorde 2
Friday 18 November - SHEFFIELD, 02 Academy2
Saturday 19 November - LIVERPOOL, 02 Academy2
Sunday 20 November - BRISTOL, Trinity
Wednesday 23 November - LONDON, Electric Ballroom
Thursday 24 November - OXFORD, 02 Academy2
Friday 25 November - LEEDS, Brudenell
Saturday 26 November - MANCHESTER, Academy 2
Sunday 27 November - GLASGOW, Garage
Tuesday 29 November - BIRMINGHAM, 02 Academy2
Wednesday 30 November - NORWICH, Epic Studios
Thursday 1 December - CAMBRIDGE, The Junction
Friday 2 December – EXETER, The Phoenix
GONG + OZRIC TENTACLES TOUR
Ozric Tentacles are regarded as one of the most influential bands to emerge from the UK’s festival scene, formed during the solstice at Stonehenge Free Festival 1983 going on to become psychedelic staples at Glastonbury and other festivals. The creative vision of multi-instrumentalist Ed Wynne, the Ozrics’ uniquely trippy soundscapes connect fans of progressive rock, psychedelia and dance music culture. After a prolonged hiatus the band released the 2020 album Space For The Earth (Kscope).
Ed Wynne is particularly looking forward to the tour: “I recently toured with Silas Wynne as an Electronic version of the band, but the opportunity to put together a full live again band after such a long hiatus is both daunting and exhilarating. One thing’s for sure though, this tour will be an amazing experience to share with all our fans.”
GONG
From its beginnings in a French commune in 1967, through the Virgin Records years, mismanagement, court cases, break-ups and rejoinings, deaths and rebirths – there has always been a continuous thread of beautiful, dangerous and extraordinary music. GONG recently performed with the Steve Hillage Band (himself a former member of the 1970s GONG line-up) and released the critically acclaimed album The Universe Also Collapses (Kscope, 2019). Gong’s musically diverse world includes shades of psychedelia, space rock, jazz, avant-garde, krautrock and surreal soundscapes. Gong have recently released a stunning new live album Pulsing Signals (Kscope, 2022) drawn from their 2019 UK tour.
Says Gong’s Kavus Torabi: “Gong and Ozric Tentacles have a long history together, but this is our first fully fledged, psychedelic double-dip, joint headline tour. Ever since The Ed Wynne Band played with Gong on our 2019 tour, we all agreed what a wonderful partnership this would make. I'm so happy that this will see fruition in November 2022. You can expect an outpouring of radiance and joy from both bands, it can't come around soon enough.”
The first Ozric Tentacles full-band tour for 8 years and the very first time both bands have shared the bill on a UK tour.
Pulsing Signals (Live Album)
Iconic British band Gong have announced their new live album ‘Pulsing Signals’ will be released on Kscope in February 2022. Recorded live across three shows at The Wardrobe in Leeds, The Cluny in Newcastle and Rescue Rooms in Nottingham in 2019 as the band toured their acclaimed album ‘The Universe Also Collapses’, this live record finds the group in spirited form as they undertake, unbeknownst to them, their final tour before the global pandemic took charge.
Formed in 1969 by Daevid Allen, one of the founding members of Soft Machine, classic albums such as Camembert Electrique, Flying Teapot and You established Gong as one of the most unique, innovative and experimental rock groups of the Seventies.
Before he sadly passed away in 2015, Allen laid out his hopes for a future Gong, that it should be uplifting, exploratory and a positive force. Kavus Torabi, Fabio Golfetti, Ian East, Dave Sturt and Cheb Nettles, chosen by him, continue his vision.
Owing to Gong being an international band, lockdown and restrictions on travel made it impossible to convene and work on new music. The band received many requests by fans to release a live album and fortunately enough, the band had multitrack recordings of several shows from the 2019 tour. Bassist Dave Sturt went through all the master tapes and selected the best performances which became Pulsing Signals.
The album was recorded by Pete Wibrew and mixed by Frank Byng, while mastering was handled by Andy Jackson. The stylish artwork was designed by Steve Mitchell, who has worked closely with the band since 2016’s Rejoice I’m Dead.
To mark the announcement, Gong have shared ‘My Sawwtooth Wake’ from the album. Taken from 2019’s ‘The Universe Also Collapses’, the sprawling near 13 minute epic captures the band on top form with an appropriately mind bending video to match.
With touring now set to recommence and bookings going long into 2022 and beyond, Daevid Allen’s vision for the future looks set to be fulfilled.
Pulsing Signals will be available on 2CD & digitally on 18th February and 2LP on 22nd March - all formats are available now.
The Universe Also Collapses
The vanguards of 20th and 21st Century psychedelic music lead the way with their new studio album
Gong is more than a band. It’s an idea. A way of life. A continuum that exists in all times, in all places, everywhere.
Gong’s new album, The Universe Also Collapses, their first for Kscope, is the latest shining point on that continuum, a masterpiece of visionary 21st century psychedelia, a celebration of the magick of science, a journey both internal and external, bridging the worlds of lysergic exploration and quantum physics, equal parts Terence McKenna and Stephen Hawking.
“We wanted to make what we thought of as the ultimate psychedelic rock album,” says Gong’s singer and guitarist Kavus Torabi of The Universe Also Collapses. “The word ‘psychedelic’ gets bandied around a lot, and a great deal of the stuff that gets called psychedelic nowadays doesn’t match up to the description. I want to hear music that makes me feel like I’m on drugs.”
The Universe Also Collapses is all of that, but it’s much more too. This is the second album since the death in 2015 of Daevid Allen, the maverick genius who founded Gong more than 50 years ago in a flash of LSD-fuelled inspiration. If 2016’s Rejoice! I’m Dead! was a tribute of sorts to the band’s departed talisman, then The Universe Also Collapses marks the dawning of a new chapter.
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