A survey of his first 10 years under the Spirits Burning banner throws up some surprising contributors (including Daevid Allen, Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson, and High Tide’s Simon House).
•
Spirits Burning is a musical collective that has released a combination of ambient, jazz and full-on space-rock with input from many of the genre's luminaries, most notably Gong's Daevid Allen and members of Hawkwind.
Woody Allen | Allen Ginsberg | Tim Allen | Allen County, Indiana | Allen County | Steve Allen | Peter Allen | Ethan Allen | Paul Allen | Debbie Allen | Booz Allen Hamilton | Tony Allen | Irwin Allen | Aboite Township, Allen County, Indiana | Wayne Township, Allen County, Indiana | Lily Allen | Tony Allen (musician) | Joan Allen | Gracie Allen | David Allen Sibley | Allen Toussaint | Allen Stanford | Allen Newell | Stephen Allen Davis | Allen Lane | The Steve Allen Show | Ted Allen | Rex Allen | Daevid Allen | Allen Ludden |
Emerging from associations with the hippy-orientated Here & Now, Nik Turner, Gong's Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth, the Androids of Mu gathered together under the apron of the Frestonia squatter community in Notting Dale, West London, notable in its time for producing non-conformist music.
Calvert went on to play in Gong off-shoots, The Invisible Opera Company Of Tibet and Mother Gong with Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth.
Among the label’s releases have been box sets including the six-CD Jack Bruce Can You Follow? and the four-CD Bill Nelson Trial By Intimacy (The Book Of Splendours) as well as standalone releases by artists including: Man, Claire Hamill, The Keef Hartley Band, Egg, Michael Moorcock, Gary Farr, Daevid Allen and Rare Bird.
The song titles refer to the following people or groups: Mark Ellidge (Wyatt's half brother), Bridget St. John, Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth, Nick Evans, Caravan and Jimmy Hastings, Kevin Ayers' The Whole World, Carla Bley, Marsha Hunt and Caroline Coon.
Frith dedicates each track to some of the important figures in his musical life, including Champion Jack Dupree, John Cage, Terry Riley, Daevid Allen, Barre Phillips and Davey Graham.
The track "Memories", basically a Robert Wyatt performance, was initially recorded in 1967 by Soft Machine (with Daevid Allen on guitar) and later also covered by Material on their 1982 album One Down with a lead vocal by Whitney Houston.
Malherbe and Daevid Allen began collaborating again with Gongmaison in 1989, which eventually began performing and recording again under the name Gong on the studio albums Shapeshifter (1992), Zero to Infinity (2001), and 2032 (2009) after rejoining with various members of the classic line-up, including Gilli Smyth and Mike Howlett, among others.
Amid a flurry of lineup changes in the mid-1970s, including the departure of founding members Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth, Gong drummer Pierre Moerlen found himself in charge of the band and with two albums remaining on their Virgin recording contract.