Timothy Blake (born 6 February 1952, in

Shepherd's Bush Shepherd's Bush is a district of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Although primarily residential in character ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

) is a

keyboardist A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical inst ...

synthesist An analog (or analogue) synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Trautonium, were built with a variety of va ...

vocalist Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

, and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

working with

Gong A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

Hawkwind 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 ...

and his Synthesizer and Light performances as Crystal Machine, with the French Light Artist

Patrice Warrener Patrice Warrener is a French light artist, mostly known for his Chromolithe Polychromatic Illumination System. Warrener has made more than 60 chromolithe installations over the last fifteen years, lighting up buildings in close to a dozen differe ...

. Blake met Daevid Allen at Marquee Studios, where the latter was recording his first solo album ''

Banana Moon ''Banana Moon'' is the debut solo album by Australian singer/songwriter/guitarist and Gong leader Daevid Allen, released in July 1971 on the French BYG Actuel label. The album is sometimes referred to as ''Bananamoon'' and it was also reissued as ...

'' 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 is a Japanese art film original video animation (OVA) written and directed by Mamoru Oshii. Released by Tokuma Shoten on 15 December 1985, the film was a collaboration between artist Yoshitaka Amano and Oshii. It features very little spoken di ...

'', 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 ''Crystal Machine'' is a combination studio/live album by Tim Blake Timothy Blake (born 6 February 1952, in Shepherd's Bush, London) is a keyboardist, synthesist, vocalist, and composer working with Gong, Hawkwind and his Synthesizer and ...

'' and 1978's ''

Blake's New Jerusalem ''Blake's New Jerusalem'' is an album by Tim Blake, recorded and originally released in 1978 on Barclay. The title is a reference to the popular British hymn "Jerusalem", which is based on William Blake's 1804 poem "And did those feet in ancien ...

'', 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 The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...

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 Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

. 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 Patrice Warrener is a French light artist, mostly known for his Chromolithe Polychromatic Illumination System. Warrener has made more than 60 chromolithe installations over the last fifteen years, lighting up buildings in close to a dozen differe ...

Illumination System, and doing concerts with Jean-Philippe Rykiel. Blake currently lives in the Poitou region of France.

Solo discography

* 1977: ''

'' * 1978: ''

'' * 1979: "''Waterfalls in Space''" (digitally re-released in 2007) * 1991: ''Magick'' * 2000: ''The Tide of the Century'' * 2002: ''Caldea Music II'' * 2006: ''Live Waterfalls in Space'' * 2012: ''Noggi 'Tar'' * 2018: ''Lighthouse- an Anthology 1973-2012''

External links

Official Website

Tim Blake-Crystal Machine on Facebook
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blake, Tim 1952 births People from Shepherd's Bush English keyboardists Hawkwind members Protopunk musicians Living people Gong (band) members