Blake met Daevid Allen at Marquee Studios, where the latter was recording his first solo album Banana Moon in 1971. At the end of the sessions, Allen had invited Blake to be Gong's sound mixer, but Blake preferred to work on his own music. He eventually joined Gong full-time in September 1972 as the band's synthesizer player, being among the first to bring the synthesizer out of the studio and on to the stage. He appears on all three albums of the Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy; Flying Teapot, Angel's Egg, and You, in fact Blake is the only composer, apart from the Allen/Smyth partnership, to have written for all three of the "Trilogy" Albums, making him one of Gong's most important composers. He left Gong in early 1975.
Blake began a solo career under the name of Crystal Machine produced two solo albums 1977's Crystal Machine and 1978's Blake's New Jerusalem, and many stage performances in Europe and Japan, culminating in the 1979 Glastonbury Festival.
Later in 1979, Blake joined up with another noted "space rock" outfit, Hawkwind, the group he had helped to form 10 years before, for a short stint between 1979 and 1980 and has sporadically rejoined them on several occasions. Since November 2007, Blake has been collaborating with Hawkwind full-time, performing on theremin and what he chooses to call "virtual lead guitar" .
He has reunited with the 'classic-era' line-up of Gong (minus Pierre Moerlen, who died in May 2005) for one-off concerts, in May 1977, 1995, and in November 2006 at the 3rd Gong Family Unconvention (Uncon) at the Melkweg in Amsterdam.
Blake's discography contains more than 25 titles, including eight solo albums as Tim Blake - Crystal Machine and he removed all his solo albums from the record market, preferring to make them available for download as mp3s from his own web site.
As well as his work with Hawkwind, Blake continues to work with Patrice Warrener on his Chromolithe Illumination System, and doing concerts with Jean-Philippe Rykiel.
Hawkwind are an English rock band known as one of the earliest space rock groups. Since their formation in November 1969, Hawkwind have gone through many incarnations and have incorporated many different styles into their music, including hard rock, progressive rock and psychedelic rock. They are regarded as an influential proto-punk band. Their lyrics often cover themes of urban life and science fiction.
Gong are a psychedelic rock band that incorporates elements of jazz and space rock into their musical style. The group was formed in Paris in 1967 by Australian musician Daevid Allen and English vocalist Gilli Smyth. Band members have included Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Steve Hillage, Mike Howlett, Tim Blake, Pierre Moerlen, Bill Laswell and Theo Travis. Others who have played on stage with Gong include Don Cherry, Chris Cutler, Bill Bruford, Brian Davison, Dave Stewart and Tatsuya Yoshida.
Space rock is a music genre characterized by loose and lengthy song structures centered on instrumental textures that typically produce a hypnotic, otherworldly sound. It may feature distorted and reverberation-laden guitars, minimal drumming, languid vocals, synthesizers, and lyrical themes of outer space and science fiction.
Stephen Simpson Hillage is an English musician, best known as a guitarist. He is associated with the Canterbury scene and has worked in experimental domains since the late 1960s. Besides his solo recordings he has been a member of Khan, Gong and System 7.
Levitation is the tenth studio album by English rock group Hawkwind, released in 1980. It peaked at No. 21 on the UK Albums Chart.
Nicholas Robert Turner was an English musician, best known as a member of space rock pioneers Hawkwind. Turner played saxophone and flute, as well as being a vocalist and composer. While with Hawkwind, Turner was known for his experimental free jazz stylisations and outrageous stage presence, often donning full makeup and Ancient Egypt-inspired costumes.
Ralph Towner is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and bandleader. He plays the twelve-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion, trumpet and French horn.
Live Seventy Nine is a 1980 live album by Hawkwind recorded on their Winter 1979 UK tour. It reached #15 on the UK album chart.
Gong est Mort, Vive Gong is a double live album by the progressive rock group Gong, recorded on 28 May 1977 at the Hippodrome, Paris, France, and originally released in 1977 as a double LP by Tapioca Records, France.
You is the fifth studio album by the progressive rock band Gong, released by Virgin Records in October 1974. It is the last album by Daevid Allen's iteration of the group until 1992's Shapeshifter. Recorded at Virgin's Manor Studios in Oxfordshire, England, side 1 was mixed at Pye Studios, Marble Arch, London, while side 2 was mixed at The Manor. It was produced by Simon Heyworth and Gong "under the universal influence of C.O.I.T., the Compagnie d'Opera Invisible de Thibet", and also engineered by Heyworth.
Gong Live Etc. is a live album by Gong, recorded between 1973 and 1975 and originally released in 1977. It is a set of live recordings, studio out-takes and BBC session recordings spanning the years 1973 to 1975.
Flying Teapot is the third studio album by the progressive rock band Gong, originally released by Virgin Records in May 1973. It was the second entry in the Virgin catalogue (V2002) and was released on the same day as the first, Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (V2001). It was re-issued in 1977, with different cover art, by BYG Actuel in France and Japan. Recorded at Virgin's Manor Studios, in Oxfordshire, England, it was produced by Giorgio Gomelsky and engineered by "Simon Sandwitch 2 aided by Tom Zen".
Xitintoday is a studio album released by Nik Turner's Sphynx in 1978. It was produced by Steve Hillage.
Centigrade 232 is an album and a book of poems by English writer and musician Robert Calvert, recorded in 1986 and released in 2007. The poem Centigrade 232 was set to music by Spirits Burning in 2001. Some titles were set to music by Hawkwind and issued as The Brock/Calvert Project in 2007.
Blake's New Jerusalem is an album by Tim Blake, recorded and originally released in 1978 on Barclay.
Christopher David Allen, known professionally as Daevid Allen, sometimes credited as Divided Alien, was an Australian musician. He was co-founder of the psychedelic rock groups Soft Machine and Gong.
Keith Hale is an English songwriter, composer, record producer, performer and music teacher, most notable for his work with Toyah Willcox, Hawkwind and Ginger Baker.
The Machine Stops is a concept album by space rock band Hawkwind, released on 15 April 2016. It is inspired by the E.M. Forster short story of the same name. It is Hawkwind's twenty-ninth studio album, Hawkwind's first album recorded without the involvement of Tim Blake since 2010's Blood of the Earth and the first to feature bassist Haz Wheaton.
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