PIERRE MOERLEN’S GONG – LIVE LP – Nr MINT A1/B1 ROCK JAZZ FUSION

Pierre Moerlen’s Gong – Live
(Arista Records  1980  202205)
Matrix No’s: A1/B1

Sleeve in Very Good+ condition
– some wear to edges/corners & sticker marks top right
Insert in Nr MINT condition

Vinyl in Nr MINT condition
(there are some surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality apart from the odd light pop/crackle)

Gong is an international psychedelic rock band known for incorporating elements of jazz and space rock into its musical style. The group was formed in Paris in 1967 by Australian musician Daevid Allen and English vocalist Gilli Smyth. Notable band members have included Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Steve Hillage, Mike Howlett, 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.

Gong released its debut album, Magick Brother, in 1970, which featured a psychedelic pop sound. By the following year, the second album, Camembert Electrique, featured the more psychedelic rock/space rock sound with which they would be most associated. Between 1973 and 1974, Gong released their best known work, the allegorical Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy, describing the adventures of Zero the Hero, the Good Witch Yoni and the Pot Head Pixies from the Planet Gong.

In 1975, Daevid Allen & Gilli Smyth left the band, which continued without them, releasing a series of jazz rock albums under the leadership of drummer Pierre Moerlen. This incarnation of the band became known as Pierre Moerlen’s Gong. Meanwhile, Smyth formed Mother Gong while Allen initiated a series of spin-off groups, including Planet Gong, New York Gong and Gongmaison, before returning to lead Gong once again in 1990 until his death in 2015. With Allen’s encouragement, the band decided to continue and released the album Rejoice! I’m Dead! on 16 September 2016.

Pierre Moerlen’s Gong was an instrumental jazz fusion outfit led by French drummer and percussionist Pierre Moerlen, which developed as an offshoot of the psychedelic progressive rock band Gong, founded and led by Daevid Allen. It was notable for the prominent use of mallet percussion, such as marimba, xylophone, and vibraphone, in a jazz-rock context.

Amid a flurry of line-up 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 Records contract.

Moerlen formed a new line-up featuring his brother Benoit on mallet percussion, US-born bassist Hansford Rowe and a rotating cast of session guitarists, notably Allan Holdsworth, ex-Rolling Stone Mick Taylor, Mike Oldfield and Bon Lozaga.

They released two albums under the Gong moniker, Gazeuse! (called Expresso in North America) in 1976 and then Expresso II in 1978. Following the completion of the Virgin contract, Moerlen changed the name of the group to Pierre Moerlen’s Gong. In early 1979, the group released Downwind, which was a more rock/pop flavoured album that featured occasional lead vocals by Moerlen himself and a cameo by Steve Winwood. Later in 1979 they released another album, Time is the Key, that took the band further into pop/rock territory. The live album “Pierre Moerlen’s Gong Live” was released in 1980, followed later that year by another studio album Leave It Open. By this point, Pierre Moerlen’s incarnation of Gong scaled back its activity greatly, not releasing another record until 1986’s Scientology-inspired Breakthrough, featuring members of the Swedish band Tribute. Second Wind followed in 1988. The group quietly disbanded soon after.

Lozaga, Rowe, and Benoit Moerlen went on to form Gongzilla in the early 1990s, releasing four albums to date which are very much an extension of the percussive fusion that the original group brought to the fold, and they perform a mix of new and old live material going back to the Gazeuse/Expresso II period. Moerlen joined them for their 2002 European tour.

Moerlen revived the PMG name in 2002 and recorded the album Pentanine with Russian musicians. He died unexpectedly of natural causes on 3 May 2005, while rehearsals for another Pierre Moerlen’s Gong project were underway.