Listen to the latest Astral Visions Mixcloud Show!

perjantai 24. huhtikuuta 2020

Astral Visions Mixcloud Show #93 online

Astral Visions Mixcloud Show #93 online now! Make your isolation period a bit more enjoyable with these mind-altering sounds...

 https://www.mixcloud.com/AstralVisions/astral-visions-mixcloud-show-93/


1
Reklamaatio valtiolle radioaaltojen häirinnästä Pudasjärven UFO-aallon aikaan (from Valitut palat EP)
UFO-tutkimuksia
2
Pictures of Matchstick Men (from V/A: A Band for All Seasons)
The Jeremy Band
3
Aerosol (from Cloud Cover)
Green Seagul
4
It Happened Tomorrow (from The Decomposition of Noise)
Vibravoid
5
Persian Drug (from Dreamfeeder)
Megaritual
6
Ummon (from Ummon)
Slift
7
Ulta-violet Thing (from Yellow Spider)
Firefriend
8
Solar Flares (edit, from S/T)
Smokemaster
9
We Are Normal (from V/A: A Band for All Seasons)
Mr. Armageddon and the Suicide Society
10
Bedazzled (from V/A: A Band for All Seasons)
LoveyDove
11
Mesmercuria (from Parapsychedelia)
The Heartwood Institute and Panamint Manse
12
No Real Dub (from Three Gates Dub)
Taras Bulba
13
Child of the Sky (from V/A: A Band for All Seasons)
Moonweevil
14
The Smell of Incense (from V/A: A Band for All Seasons)
The Gold Needles
15
I Feel Free (from V/A: A Band for All Seasons)
Bhopals Flowers
16
Aquarius (from V/A: A Band for All Seasons)
Jack Ellister
17
Refugee (from V/A: A Band for All Seasons)
Permanent Clear Light
18
Fly (from V/A: A Band for All Seasons)
Consterdine
19
Neblina Rosa (from Fantasma)
Davi Rodriguez de Lima
20
There Is Another Way (from There Is Another Way)
Nukli
21
In Procession (from Omens)
Elder
22
Night Lands (from Night Lands)
Dead Sea Apes
23
Atomium (from Valitut palat EP)
UFO-tutkimuksia
 
 

tiistai 14. huhtikuuta 2020

Sleeping Pandora - Signs in the Sky

Self-released

Sleeping Pandora is a solo project from guitarist/producer Mathias Rosmann. He has also played in a space/stoner rock band called Cosmic Fall. Mathias has released several digital/CD releases as Sleeping Pandora and I have included his tracks to a couple of my Astral Visions Mixcloud Shows before. Sleeping Pandora is beautiful, floating and spacey instrumental electronic music with great, melodic and emotional electric guitar work on top. Some of it is rather space/psych rock oriented but mostly I would describe it as electronic ambient post rock/electonica. It's all very well produced and you just get sucked into it.

The new album has six long tracks. The journey begins with the excellent "Raytracing". Lots of delay on the guitar... The electronic beat soon joins in to give a rather modern edge, sort of like some of the Ozrics stuff. I am floating in space, anyway! One of the best pieces on the album. "Mandarine" comes next and is cool chill-out music with a bit of dub vibe. "Floating High" is a more guitar oriented, peaceful and almost 17-minute trip into the night sky, just wonderful. The next piece "Tears" is another emotional, beautiful track. On "The Dome" we get some more spacier ambient stuff and the delay guitar brings to mind Steve Hillage or Manuel Göttsching‎. I love it! The album is finished with "Touching Moon" which again is an ambient, spacey electronic piece with a bit faster beat this time. This one gets more danceable too.Very nice! I really hope this stuff would also see a vinyl release, it sounds so great.

www.facebook.com/sleepingpandora


Nukli - There Is Another Way

Space Rock Productions (SRP064)

Nukli is one of those British prog/space/psych rock bands that I, like many other psych heads, got to know in the 90s through the excellent Delerium Records and Freak Emporium mail order. They started out in the 80s as Psi Nukli  but soon dropped the Psi part. After a few tape releases and an appearance on the Pick & Mix 2CD compilation their excellent The Time Factory album was released on Delerium in 1997, sadly only on CD. I didn't hear anything from them for years but the band must have activated again and started to play live. Two live CD's were put out by the band in 2013 and 2016, and last year they finally released a new studio album on CD! There Is Another Way was recorded at the legendary Foel Studio in Wales already in 2012 but mixed last year. Now it's time to finally have a Nukli album out on vinyl, since Space Rock Productions is releasing it with a bonus track "Foel Funk" on 2LP in May!

The music of Nukli is perhaps best described as a bit spacey and psychedelic, groovy progressive rock. So the emphasis is on the prog side for sure. The basic trio of bass, drums and guitar is enhanced by vocals, keyboards and synths by the guitar player. Even on the album, for example on the instrumental "Kraanich", when there is more keyboard oriented parts there is no guitar, so the overall sound is rather airy and not too full of stuff and too over-dubbed. You can clearly hear what everybody is playing because of this. The guys are all great musicians and their songs are adventurous and interesting but not too hard to follow or understand. There are some jazzy and funky elements, Gong/Canterbury vibes, free festival/space rock scene stuff, ethnic, acoustic parts, you name it. They have also used some spoken samples. The band often gets most psychedelic during the excellent guitar solos. For example the title track is very trippy as  a whole, though! All in all, this is a very enjoyable experience and it feels so good to hear some new studio stuff by these old progressive space cadets again! The vinyl is limited to just 300 copies so be fast...

www.facebook.com/Nukli.band


torstai 9. huhtikuuta 2020

Saint Gallus Convention Tapes - Files Vol. 01

Wonderlamp Records (DigOil-08)

Saint Gallus Convention Tapes is a fresh band from Dortmund, Germany. This quartet with a lovely female singer mixes together (traditional) blues with psychedelic rock like no-one else I've heard before.

There are some good old standards like "Smokestack Lightnin'" but I actually prefer their originals like the first digital single "Draught". The guitarist also plays some steel guitar, blues harp and sings. His singing sounds pretty authentic and bluesy for example on the otherwise pretty ethereal sounding  "White Tears". I'm not a big blues fan myself so the more basic blues pieces are not that interesting to me but when the band gets more psychedelic I enjoy them a lot. The album is finished with a 14-minute version of "Bringing It On Home" with lots of jamming, of course! The album will be released next month on vinyl and CD.

www.facebook.com/SaintGallus 


 

Blabbermouth ‎– Hörspiel

Dirter Promotions (DPROMCD145)

Blabbermouth is a new band from Lu Edmonds (PIL, Mekons, Damned) and Mark Roberts (Godfathers, Massive Attack). They released one limited 7" for 2018 Records Store Day and this debut album was released in late 2019 on vinyl, CD, cassette and digital format. I had no idea of this band before I recently received this CD as a promo. Lu and Mark both of course have had very respectful careers in innovative and experimental music so far so you can be sure this is also pretty interesting...

It's sort of difficult for me to label the music of Blabbermouth very precisely. Let's just say that it is often electronic, experimental, ambient, industrial post-punk/rock/folk with lots of sound collages, World Music & jazz vibes etc. Many songs have weird sounding robot narration in different languages and the overall feel is sort of out of this world and psychedelic as well. I won't go through all the tracks this time, but I like most of them. This in an interesting and adventurous journey into sound for sure. The lyrics seem to be rather deep and philosophical, although I don't understand most of the languages used. The drums are often very groovy and the ethnic string instruments give the synthesized soundscapes some natural feel as well. There are several guests featured too like Tuvan guitarist and throat singer Albert Kuvezin, Canadian folk singer Brenna MacCrimmon, Scottish jazz fusion drummer and percussionist Ken Hyder, English guitarist Justin Adams, English jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, pianist and composer  Tim Hodgkinson etc. If you like experimental, odd, original, challenging and heady music with lots of different ingredients you should definitely try this out.

www.facebook.com/blabbermouthmusic



sunnuntai 5. huhtikuuta 2020

Davi Rodriguez de Lima - Fantasma

Sulatron Records (st 2002)

This is a limited (300 copies), vinyl-only release of the first solo album by Davi Rodriguez de Lima. Davi is a musician and recording engineer from Brasil, but he has been living in Germany for years now. Before moving to Europe he has played in bands like Ecos Falsos and The Orange Disaster. Here he sings and plays all the instruments himself apart from the trumpet. I haven't previously heard of him so let's get into it...

There are eight tracks on the album, all in between 3:36 and 5:41 in length. The overal vibe is pretty surreal, noisy and psychedelic and most of the music rocks. There are some blues, garage, alternative, punk rock, experimental, you name it. The opener "Fantasma" starts off with some whispering and field recordings. Then we get some noisy, hypnotic guitar, programmed, sampled drums and vocals. The bass is played with a Moog Synthesizer on the whole album. "Tamed" is closer to stoner rock or heavy psych I guess, groovy stuff with some cool solo guitar work as well. I like it! Then some more field recordings to kick off the fierce and aggressive "Off Track". I'm reminded of The Heads, early Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu and the like. "Eternal Children" is a slower, more shoegazer-influenced, heady track. "Grey Times" starts off with field recordings again and when the music begins an image of a stoner rock version of Lenny Kravitz comes to mind. The trumpet is used in a pretty wild manner. "Neblina Rose" is a more relaxed song sounding a bit like Syd Barrett's solo stuff. It gets rather bluesy later on. One of my favourites is "Banalized" that rocks out in the early Sun Dial style. There is an experimental section in the middle. The album is finished with the more peaceful "Filho", a very nice ending to an interesting album. It took me several rounds to really get into this album but when it hits its rather good indeed. Check it out!

www.facebook.com/davirodriguezdelima