Fruits de Mer Records / Regal Crabomophone (winkle 57)
Fift Season is the latest new addition to the fabulous Fruits de Mer/Regal Crabomophone rooster. Stellar Season is their debut album and includes an excellent set of songs in the early 70s UK progressive psych folk fashion. They are actually a duo formed by Nicholas Whittaker (you might know him from the excellent prog band Diagonal) and James Howard (ex-member of Running Dogs). The album also features other Diagonal members Luke Foster and Dave Wileman as well as guitarist Will Hoves as guests.
Like many albums of the original era, Stellar Season is a loose consept album about a rural society far from Earth that was in love with the Sun, Day and Summer with not so good end results. We have seven songs in 43 minutes and they form a very interesting, beautiful, well balanced and rather peaceful arch. We get plenty of acoustic guitars, sitar, great bass patterns, nice harmony vocals, soft rhythms, heavenly keyboards, synthesizers, woodwind and almost everything you would except from an album like this. Well, no clear-voiced female singers or violins, though. All in all, a very enjoyable experience that will give lots of aural pleasure to fans of progressive folk music. There are two different vinyl variants to choose from and the black one is the more limited version. Recommended!
This great power pop trio from California loved their 60s mod/freakbeat/garage/psych influences from the US and UK. They were frequently involved with Fruits de Mer since the 2010 compilation LP A Phase We're Going Through until they went on indefinitive hiatus some time ago. Well, until sort of now, of course, when this double CD-R compilation was released last month.
The first disc features all the band's individual tracks for Fruits de Mer (mostly covers, 11 in total) plus nine bonus tracks that are all their own compositions. They cover for example The Bee Gees, Bowie, The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Pretty Things etc. and do a wonderful job at it. Six of the bonus tracks are from their 2012 album Venus, Saturn and the Crecent Moon. Then we get two demos of tracks from the same album plus a short piece recorded for the Strange Brew broadcast. There's lots of stuff to love here! The second disc includes their complete remake of the Strange Roads album by The Action, first time on CD format! I have previously reviewed that album, so please read my thougts over here.
Okay, I have a confession to make. Vibravoid from Germany is the best band that has ever released anything on Fruits de Mer and one of my favourite bands ever... With one constant member Christian (Dr.) Koch they have been around for 35 years and released a massive back catalogue also including numerous remakes and reissues. Vibravoid is one of the leading acts in the psychedelic rock in general and everyone into psychedelia and krautrock, old or new, really should check them out.
This double CD-R compiles some of the best covers the band has recorded for Fruits de Mer on the first disc and some live versions (including previously unreleased) and studio album covers on the second disc. Many of the original limited edition 7" and LP releases are now almost impossible to get at reasonable prices and are totally essential, so it's very cool that you can now hear some of the best pieces in a very economic and easy way. 15 tracks in total on disc one, I love every minute of it. We have covers of Pink Floyd, Can, Amon Düül II, Iron Butterfly, Traffic, Kraftwerk, even Eddie Cochran etc., you name it.
The hard-core fans like me who already have everything are probably most intersted in the previously unreleased live stuff on disc two. "Colour Your Mind" was recorded at The Cavern Club in Exeter in 2016 and has a really great sound. Very cool version! "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" from Film Museum in the band's hometown Düsseldorf in 2017 rocks like hell... All 12 minutes of it. Then we are back at The Cavern Club with over 15-minute long version of "Mother Sky", splendid. "No Silver Bird" is from the 2011 Burg Hertzberg Festival and might be a different mix to the one from the live albun the band released from that gig. "Incense and Peppermints", "Magic Mirror" and "Oscillations" are the covers released on two of the band's studio albums in 2008 and 2013 and they are amazing versions for sure.
All in all, this is great album to get into Vibravoid and even if you have most of the stuff this makes a great listening experience. Just get it!
Positive Wave is a Helsinki-based prog rock band that has been active for a long time. For some reason some bands like them need a decade or more to make an album, and the self-titled debut was released already in 2010. They have had some draw-backs though, mainly the untimely passing of their original keyboard player Jani Häggblom in 2022. Jani is still very strongly present on the new album. So what can I say about the band? Like their name suggests, they spread positive vibes through their warm, happy and pleasureable music. The vocals of their charismatic and lovely singer Susan Karttunen are in Finnish, but don't let that stop you from chcking out their stuff even if you don't understand a word.
They are often labeled as progressive rock band, which is mostly true. They also play around with reggae, afrobeat and other world music as well as folk, funk, jazz, pop and a bit of psychedelia. I guess Wigwam is one of their influnces, but there must be lots of others as well like Santana. There's a certain early 70's vibe in there, but especially the latest stuff also has some more modern elements, so you can't really just label them as relics. All the 11 tracks on the CD are very well written, arranged and performed. These guys are really good players and can keep the stuff interesting and uplifting. Susan is one of the best female singers in this genre in Finland, for sure. The album took a long time to finnish, but it was worth it. It sounds just great, and I also love the suitable drawings by Eetu Pellonpää. If you like positive, nice progressive, creative and versatile music, this is a must.
Some Astral news. Bad news first: my Facebook accounts are frozen, so my almost only channel for promoting my music is down again after hours and hours of hard work of getting connected to like-minded people again. A Bummer. I hope I can get it back this time, but let's see. That's the reason I'm now asking for help in spreading the message and sharing this post to all possible social media sites you are on, thanks and astral blessings to all those who are ready to help!
No new Astral Magic releases in the near future, but our album with Jay Tausig and Bridget Wishart as Astral Hawk Machine should be out soon on LP and CD. More news a.s.a.p. Also the true heavy space rock album Into the Cosmos should finally be out on LP and CD later this year. Just wait until you hear that one! There might also be a new Astral Magic magazine with a new compilation and at least one more Astral Magic album this year. Probably more, you know me...
Then to the good news: we have a new project album ready now; Chakra Vimana - Feed My Soul. Chakra
Vimana is a new modern & jazzy prog/psych/space rock project by
Shane Beck, Mark Cook and Santtu Laakso with special guest Steven Leak. Debut album Feed My Soul will be released in 2025. Album design by Andy Wainwright. We are now in the process of finding a record label for the album, please be in touch if you have any ideas?
You can listen to an album sampler on our bandcam site:
It’s been another very productive year for me in 2024! These are my all releases on Astral Magic Music this year. In addition, I play synths on one track on the new Sendelica album Requiem for Mankind. That’s all, I think…
My New Year’s resolution is to cut down on my releases… I might do some other projects with other people or let real labels put out my stuff but releasing this much stuff without any distribution or real help from anyone is just insane and has to stop… We are living in hard times and people just don’t have money to spend on music like they used to, it seems. Sad but true. I won’t stop making music just yet, though! Thanks to all collaborators, my small but loyal fanbase, dj’s and reviewers for support, I love you all.