Astral Magic & Related News!

Happy New Year!

Quite a lot has happened in the Astral World since the latest blog release in October. Since the first actual CD release on Astral Magic Music, Astral Magic - The Chosen Ones has been sold-out for a long time I decided to do something about it. Rather than just to re-release it, I got an idea to make new versions of the best tracks and release it under a bit different name: The Ultra Chosen Ones. I recorded some new stuff to ten of the tracks and remixed them. My old friend Juha Takalo, who designed The Chosen Ones CD art also made new artwork for this release. Both lathe-cut LP and CD-R (with two bonus tracks) are ONLY available from elasticStage.

 There were two new releases on 5.12.2025, the last Bandcamp Friday of the year. Astral Magic - Weird Encounters and Alternative Realities (ASTRAL058) was the end result of a long process started already at the beginning of 2024. I wanted to continue the Astral Magic magazine that was put out with the compilation tape Meetings with the Universal Mind in 2022. In the end I had to make it happen myself, of course with the help of Andy Wainwright doing the design. Weird Encounters is partly a compilation as well, but also includes some brand-new stuff. All the 13 tracks on the limited-edition CD have never been released in physical format before. The Bandcamp download also includes the booklet Visions from the Future in PDF form. To have the booklet also in printed form, it was added to the lathe-cut LP version that has partly different tracks... Only available from elasticStage.

 What comes to our new project Strange Vibrations, things have progressed as well. After Higher Dimentional Beings there have been TWO more albums! V was released as a limited edition (50 copies) real CD in cardboard cover and lathe-cut LP only available from elasticStage again. The latest addition to the S. V. album family is Out of My Mind, that in physical form is only available from elasticStage, both as a lathe-cut LP and a CD-R.

I have been busy making new music with Paul Roland and another album with Bridget Wishart is also taking form. Other stuff has also been made with other musicians, of course. Check out for example Tomplex. I will also be on the next release by Dreaming Apparition, together with Shane Beck and Kevin Erhardt-Hansen.

The long-awaited Astral Hawk Machine album (a collaboration with Jay Tausig, Bridget Wishart and Santtu Laakso) should finally be available next week! There will only be a CD (300 copies) release at the moment, out on Italian Black Widow Records.

Good news is that the next Astral Magic release Into the Cosmos will be out on the 6th of February on LP (200 copies) and digipack CD (100 copies) on Astral Magic Music! Both formats have already been manufactured so no more delays with this heavy, psychedelic space rock masterpiece! Check out the opener on YouTube:

 

Astral news, good and bad...

 Hello and Happy New Year!

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:

chakravimana.bandcamp.com

We also have a new Facebook site (Mark had to start again after mine was frozen yesterday):

 facebook.com/chakravimana/

 Mark also did a cool video of the album sampler: