3rd Ear Experience - The Twilight Sutra, A Space Rock Ballet

 Space Rock Productions (SPR090)

 

I've been a fan of the American psych/space rock band 3rd Ear Experience since I first heard them in 2014 when Space Rock Productions released their third album Incredible Good Fortune. This is their latest album, released on 2LP and 2CD, and quite a massive production all in all. The word ballet made me a bit scared at first since I'm not a big fan of that art form, but no worries, this is still proper, progressive space rock music. I have the marvelous splatter double vinyl, and the album is split in four acts that all take one side. I think it's better if I'll let themselves explain the concept:

"Twilight Sutra: the concept.

Twilight, is where night, and day light, blend - a great metaphor for the union of opposites. Twilight is also a deceptive time, shadows and light play tricks on your eyes – mind sees things that are not there, and sometimes not seeing things, that are there.

The word Sutra means; a thread of minimum words, with maximum meaning. Many ancient wisdom doctrines are delivered in Sutras.

Twilight Sutra: the music:

The music is constructed for a modern dance ballet, in the way that Lou Harrison the great American composer would supply choreographers with “musical kits” - Twilight Sutra is composed of; clusters of musical ideas that can be re-combined in countless different ways depending on what the choreographer requires. This process of creating music to a dancer is different than creating music that a dancer interprets."

The album tells an adventurous story about a Viking boy but is too long to tell here. The music is very interesting, sort or "artsy" and mostly pretty slow and atmospheric. Most of the tracks have vocals that carry the story very well. I'm sometimes reminded of 70s Pink Floyd or Eloy. The instrumentation is pretty varied: guitars, bass, drums and percussion, keyboards, flute, saxophone & pedal steel. This is (luckily) definitely rock music and not classical music, apart form maybe some passages. Maybe more progressive/symphonic rock than psych/space rock, though. Anyway, I really like the album and there's a lot to get into here. The lyrics are not printed anywhere, but the main story is, so it's pretty easy to follow what's happening where. A cool idea and excellent execution as well!

www.robbirobb.com/thirdearexperience/ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sula Bassana - Time Travel - Rare & Obscure Tracks From The Decades

 Sulatron Records

This is a new Bandcamp-only digital compilation of tracks by our dear friend Dave Schmidt aka Sula Bassana. The oldest tracks are about 30 years old and the latest from 2024. That's where we start off on our Time Travel: a live version of "Ridin'" recorded with the Sula Bassana Band in Hamburg in April 2024. This was the gig that also gave us the Sula Bassana side on their split LP with the Finnish band Skyjoggers. I wonder if there is some other stuff from that concert recorded? I'd like to hear!

Then comes a 2012 out-take "Krachgarten" that was only released on 2020 Bandcamp sampler Here Comes The Sun. Great track, I think! Then a couple of shorter pieces: "Arkelanfall" from 2009 has never been released and also features Modulfix on some electronics. Short but sweet! Also previously unreleased, "Animal Farm" was recorded in 2008 as a joke, using some animal sounds from a library CD. A sort of funny sounding track! "Was Du Denkst" is another unreleased track, probably from 2006. Nice bass playing and cool psychy vibe. "Soulcake" was recorded during many years, in between late 90's and 2005. It has only been released on a CD sampler of Peace Frog Magazine in Greece, in 2011. A bit Ash Ra Temple vibe in the first part, nice. Those of you who have the rare Sulatronics CD-R ( I do, of course!) have already heard "Fiebertraum" and "Paranoid?" originating from the second half of the 90s. Cool to have a more synth/electronic based tracks in here as well! "Suomenlinna", recorded in mid-90s was inspired by Dave's childhood wintery, foggy walk in a fortress island by the same name in Helsinki (one of my favourite spots in town!). Very ambient and atmospheric in nature. Previously unreleased. The album is finished with the over 30-minute "Pilzwald" that was recorded in the late 90s with Liquid Visions singer Alexander Bulgrin with lots of different instruments and effects. This is a real trip for sure and cool way to end this album. It's a real achievement to use tracks from different ages and recording techniques and still make the album sound as a coherent whole! Also proves that Sula Bassana has been on the right, psychedelic path all along.

www.sulabassana.de 

 
 

Astralasia - An Introduction to Astralasia

 Fruits de Mer Records (intro 10)

 Phew... This is a massive four-disc compilation of stuff by Astralasia. A big part of it has been released on Fruits de Mer on their albums, singles, cover releases, remixes, but we also get some previously unreleased tracks and mixes. I've been a fan since the early 90s so I absolutely love this treasure trove. It has something for everyone. Hawkwind fans will be interested to know that there is also an unreleased alternative mix of "Flesh to Fantasy" from the Hawkwind's Solstice Remixes maxi single. Some of the tracks were also released under various other names (The Fishheads, The Mushroom Project, Magic Mushroom Band) that Mark Swordfish has been/is part of. The oldest bits were recorded in 1982! (Too bad that my promo package has disc one two times and no disc three, so I will miss that...). So we really have over 40 years of psychedelic music history stored on this compilation. The band's most electronic, ambient/dub/house/trance album tracks from the 90's are not included, and maybe that's a good thing. But I do enjoy them too! One of the highlights is the Brainticket cover "Cotton Wood Hill/Places of Light" from Postcards from the Deep, I think I have played my copy of the box of flexi singles only once... Anyway, over four hours of excellent music, so just go and order it!

www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/astralasiaintro.html 

www.astralasia.co.uk/ 

 

Soft Hearted Scientists - The Phantom of Canton

 Fruits de Mer Records (winkle 62)

 I've been a big fan of the Soft Hearted Scientists since I first got introduced to them by Fruits de Mer way over ten years ago. Their psychedelic pop/rock/folk music has a weird appeal that I can't really put into words. There's something whimsical but at the same time deep in their vibe. This is an expanded 3LP set of their latest album originally released on CD last year on their own The Hip Replacement label. I don't own the CD and always prefer vinyl so I am really happy about this release that also has an extra LP with sort of reconstruction of the song themes on side E and three instrumental mixes on the side F as bonus tracks!

The actual album (sides A to D) has 13 new tracks, some shorter interludes and reprises, some in the "normal" pop song range of 3 to 5 minutes, some longer, around 10-minute trips all leading to the 18-minute bonus track (side E). Nathan Hall really still have his talent to write great, catchy songs and all the musicians play really well. It's hard to think of what other bands this might sound like, but I can hear some echoes of The Byrds and The Beatles, for example. But there's plenty of more influences in the mix, for sure. Anyway, this is one of the band's strongest albums without a doubt and no fan will be disappointed. Melodic, trippy and haunting, wonderful stuff.

www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/canton.html 

www.softheartedscientists.com/ 

 

 

Peel, Palmer, Tausig & Gould - Synesthesia

 Fruits de Mer Records (winkle 63)

 

This is a cool prog rock album collaboration by Fruits de Mer stalwarts Icarus Peel, Steve Palmer, Jay Tausig and Rob Gould. There are four, long instrumental pieces that feel like they were recorded in the early 70s! Even the titles are pretty convincing: "Coral Correlation", "Superpurplesunshine", "The Ochre Cobra", "The Turguoise Shards of Atlantis"... If you love the early 69-73 prog/Centerbury music originally released on Vertigo, Harvest etc. and want to know how the same vibe is achieved today this is a must-have for you. Great playing by all the masters who really know what they are doing here. LP on splatter vinyl out in mid March, get your copy from your favorite FdM dealer, I know I will.

 www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/synesthesia.html

 

Some Astral Magic Music releases available in the USA!

 I have started making some of my releases available in physical form from Kunaki Products (US)! They produce the goods very fast and I'd recommend all American fans to use it while I am not able to mail anything to the USA right now from Finland.

 So far I have added all the six Strange Vibrations albums and In Space We Trust by Astral Magic since all the artwork on those was put together by me so I could transform it to jewel case format. Expect more stuff soon, also an exclusive tape compilation in the works!

You can already access and play the virtual cassette version of the compilation Wormhole Full Of Wonders here:

https://kunaki.com/CassettePlayer.asp?PID=PX005FYW38 

Order all the stuff here:

https://kunaki.com/msales.asp?PublisherId=235790&pp=1

 

 

 

 

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: