The Chemistry Set - The Tragic Fridge Magnet / STP (winkle 61)
Okay, FdM ends the year with a triple bang! Three 7" singles, and that's the way the label started all those years ago. First we have a new single by the label stalwarts The Chemistry Set who have been involved since 2011, but they started already in the 80s. This UK band is one of my favourites among the modern torch-bearers of the 60s psych vibe, and they never disappoint me. "The Tragic Fridge Magnet" is an uptempo garage rocker that gets your ass shaking immediately! I can easily indentify with the vocals since we have a (un)healthy number of fridge magnets in out kitchen as well... This rocks! The B side is bit more psychedelic, slower "STP" (stands for Space Time Perception...). Could almost be a long-lost classic of Syd's Pink Floyd, it's that good! A must-have, naturally.
The Owl Service - A Tribute to Sandy Denny (Crustacean 103)
The Owl Service is a new act on Fruits de Mer, but backing vocalist Alison O'Donnell is probably more familiar. The single is a tribute to the music of folk rock singer Sandy Denny and has two beautiful interpretations of songs originally sung by Sandy: "The Sea" (Fotheringay) and "Genesis Hall" (Fairport Convention). Just amazing stuff and exquisite vocals by the lead singer Dorothy Chappel. Very well done! This single suits the Fruits de Mer Records catalogue perfectly. This will be sold-out very soon, so try to locate a copy if peaceful folk-rock is your thing.
Behind the Sun Collective - Children of the Revolution / Maggot Brain (Crustacean 102)
Behind the Sun Collective is another new band for the Fruits de Mer. Some of us have witnessed their set at the label's summer festival in 2024. So, we have two pretty common covers songs here, but presented in a relatively original way and I like them. Marc Bolan's hit song "Children of a Revolution" is hard-rocking and pretty dirty, it really works. "Maggot Brain" is of course shortened quite a lot from it's original 10-minute-plus length but sounds really cool and enjoyable as it is here. This act is obviously something to keep on eye on!
More info on all the singles and where to get them from:
Like I said in the previous news post, a new album by our side-project Strange Vibrations was released today to celebrate yet another Bandcamp Friday! Only 50 copies on factory-made CD-R and of course digital.
I also did a very different "Single Mix" of the album's last track "Children of the Perpetual Echo" that was released into the wild digitally last week. This version has sort of a 60s psych pop feel, I think? The original version on the album is more ambient in nature.
Check out the song at YouTube (for example):
There is nothing new out from the mothership Astral Magic, but as you might have noticed, I have put A LOT of old, sold-out stuff and vinyl debuts available to elasticStage with the help of Andy Wainwright (cover art on most) and Jonathan Segel (vinyl mastering for the lathe-cut versions).
I have ordered copies of each one to myself, but have not received all yet. But what I do have have been of high quality although being an on-demand thing and all products being done one-by-one there might sometimes be some mistakes. No worries though, elasticStage has a very fast and friendly customer support and if you receive something faulty they will send replacement a.s.a.p.
Almost all the sold-out CD-R's are now available in new packaging and the vinyl LPs available are:
As soon as we get the album artwork done, you will also be able to order LP copies of Cosmic Energy Flow, End of Time, Strange Sensation, Sacred Mysteries and Floating in Space! Happy daze are here!
If you have been wondering, then yes, there will also be an Astral Magic album out later this year.
Weird Encounters and Alternative Realitieswill be out on the 5th of December, the last Bandcamp Friday of the year. It is a weird hybrid of a new studio album and a compilation. The CD (100 copies in digipack) will include 13 tracks that have never been available in physical format before.
The CD tracks:
1. The Worm (Astral Magic Wormhole Remix) 6:04 2. Programmed Reality (New Song) 13:08 3. Colors Behind My Soul (Remix) 6:15 4. A Lucid Trip (Remix) 4:48 5. Lurking in the Dark (Home Studio Version) 5:38 6. Taste of Sunlight (Home Studio Version) 5:08 7. Psychic Resistance (Home Studio Version) 4:57 8. Mind Eater (Home Studio Version) 6:50 9. Remember Your Roots (Home Studio Version) 4:38 10. Emerald Tablet (Home Studio Version) 4:13 11. Longing for the Stars (Astral Magic Remix) 4:12 12. Solarwind (Astral Magic Remix) 4:29 13. Kingdoms in the Sky (New Song) 7:02
A lathe-cut LP with a 12-page booklet where the Astral Magic saga continues from the Astral Magic magazine released on 2022 will be made available through elasticStage. The LP version will have partly different track list, none of the tracks have been available on vinyl before:
The LP tracks:
1. The Worm (Astral Magic Wormhole Remix) 6:04 2. Programmed Reality (New Song) 13:08 3. Mind Melt Machine (L’Autre Monde Mix) 3:24 4. Heady Daze 4:20 5. Colors Behind My Soul (Remix) 6:15 6. A Lucid Trip (Remix) 4:48 7. Kingdoms in the Sky (7:08)
After years of waiting and fishing for labels, I have also decided to finally release the heavy space rock album Into the Cosmos by my own on Astral Magic Music. So LP and CD with bonus tracks coming out in early 2026! Other thing worth mentioning is that I have started album projects with two of my old collaborators, some exciting details will be given out at a later date...
Oh wow, this is already the seventh CD in the Astral Sessions series by Doctors of Space (Dr Weaver - electric guitars, bass, drum programming; Dr Space - synthesizers, hammond, mellotron). As always, the stuff is improvised on the spot, this time in the summer-winter for 2020 in Dr Weavers home studio and mixed and mastered later at Dr Space's studio.
Aug 2020 sessions give us the lengthy, mid-tempo space rocker "Ride on Freaky Father" and the at first bit more mellow "The Motherlode". The programmed drums join in after the four-minute-marker and a groovy heavy and heady rocking starts. Great stuff! Next we have a couple of tracks from jam sessions that took place in Sept 2020. "Fear the Light" has a spooky, ominous atmosphere and stays pretty experimental and weird with no rhythm. "Dark Is the Cloud of Indecision" has a techno-like beat with hypnotic synth arpeggio and heavy guitar. The last piece is the title track "Lost Souls Synthesized" and it is a more atmospheric, spacey number. If you have enjoyed the previous albums by the good doctors you will for sure also enjoy this one! Limited edition, as always, so be fast.
Dr Space (Scott Heller) played a solo gig at his local pizzeria in Portugal last March and this limited edition CD is composed of material he prepared and rehearsed in his studio before the performance. Also the gig was recorded but the rehearsal material was better so it got released instead. I'm glad that this was the case as this CD sounds fantastic! Scott really is getting better and betters with his ultra-spacey soundscapes.
All the nine tracks (from "Ambient 1" to "Ambient 9") were started with arpeggios from Novation Ultranova, Nord Lead 2 or Poly D and Scott then played his modular synths, digital Mellotron etc. on top of them. This results in very hypnotic, mesmerizing atmospheres with at first no actual beats or anything else except the synths. A drum machine makes an appearance later on. I really enjoy listening to this amazing sounding CD on headphones in vertical position with my eyes closed. It surely takes you to places, just like this kind of music should. I'm sometimes reminded of early 70s Klaus Schultze (just listen to "Ambient 3", for example) which is definitely a bad thing. Also Tangerine Dream comes to mind and I know Scott is a big fan. This is still original enough and not that many people make music like this nowadays. Can't wait to jam with Dr Space in this studio one of these days! You can also hear his synths on a recent Astral Magic album Wizard's Euphoria, a few CD's still left. Scott also has some over here!
Strange Vibrations, Astral Magic's more experimental and electronic little brother have a new album out! III was released on the Bandcamp Friday 5th of September. Only 50 copies on factory-made CD-R and going fast, so get your copy a.s.a.p. from:
https://astralmagic.bandcamp.com/album/iii
You Can check out the promo video for the opener Crystal Spaceship over here:
I must add that we already have a FOURTH album ready and it will be released on the next Bandcamp Friday on the 3rd of October! Just like III, Strange Vibrations - Higher Dimentional Beings also features Jonathan Segel on guitar, violin and bass and will be released as a factory-made CD-R limited to just 50 copies.
Check out the new Strange Vibrations Facebook site.
Some cool Astral Magic news! First of all, the latest releases include a limited edition factory-made CD-R of the latest Astral Magic album In Space We Trust! I'm really happy with how it turned up. Get it from:
Another recent, Astral Magic related release is Feed My Soul, a debut album by our project Chakra Vimana. It is out on the excellent Tonzonen Records from Germany on coloured LP and CD, both limited to 300 copies. Available from all good psych stores and mail-order companies! Also of course directly from the label and from Chakra Vimana, Herd of Instinct (US/Canada/Mexico) and Astral Magic (EU/UK) Bandcamp pages.
The latest release on Astral Magic Music is the digital Astral Magic Remixes II single of two tracks from the forth-coming Strange Vibrations album (out 1st of August). Check them out here!
Astral Magic has started to work with elasticStage, an on-demand CD-R/lathe-cut company from the UK. I am really excited about the opportunity to make some stuff available this way! There are already 11 sold-out, rare CD-R albums in better packaging available again form the elasticStage Astral Magic page:
The next phase will see the vinyl releases of In Space We Trust, Black Floyd's Trinity (also CD-R coming up), Wonderland and Dance of Destiny. Also some other old albums will be available on LP as soon as we get them mastered for vinyl and artwork modified as well. How cool is that?
Urtidsdjur is a Swedish folk/prog/psych/retro rock band from Uppsala. I have reviewed their eponomos LP in 2020. This new album released on limited edition vinyl, 60 black and 40 red(ish). All come with cool, hand-marbled and hand-numbered covers making them all different. Very nice touch!
The debut album was very much influenced by Neil Young and this is pretty much still the case. But there are also some other vibes and the band has matured and progressed a lot. There is also some violin and saxophone as well as Moog, so the sound is rather varied and interesting. The te tracks flow fluently into each other forming an organic whole. The music is very pleasant and I like the vocals that are in Swedish. Some songs are a bit heavier , some more folk orieted. Playing and production is excellent too so I do really like this album. Give it a try!
