I bet most readers know my pal and Astral Magic collaborator Anton Barbeau by now. Anton seems to live about equal amounts of time in Berlin and California and why not. He's almost as productive as I am with several albums a year released. His latest single has a new original "Dogstar" on side A. This is a great, hard rocking glam rock stomper that brings to mind Marc Bolan, in a good way. One of Anton's biggest heros, along with Syd Barrett, David Bowie, Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope and lots of others, I suspect. Things don't stop here, since somehow, Anton managed to get Barry "The Fish" Melton (Country Joe McDonald and the Fish) to play some loud lead guitar through his custom-built Mesa Boogie! Very impressive. This song really works. For the B side, Ant chose a more atmospheric and melodic cover by Robyn Hitchcock called "Queen of Eyes". Wonderful! This single is also limited to just 300 copies so hurry up if you want one and I think you should.
The Sand Pebbles form Australia are one of those bands that I have to thank Fruits de Mer Records to even know about. They have been around for over 20 years and released seven albums. This new single is limited to just 300 copies which is sort of sad since it has hit potential. The three-minute A side "Sometimes a Great Notion" brings to mind The Who or something similar, a 60s vibe but with a bit more modern sound, though. The violin gives a nice extra mood. I must say I still prefer the B side taken from the previous album, though. "Desire Lines" starts off like a perfect Neu mash-up in a very motorik manner. Amazing! The vocals are quite low in the mix. There's a great break in the hypnotic beat and then they go again. Lovely little release!
Yes! The big underground psych pop hero from the 80s, Nick is back! A brand-new limited edition 7" single is out now. Only 300 made on black vinyl! I've been a huge admirer of nick nicely for decades so it is always a big thing for me.
"Mike Hall Is Calling" is a hazy, beautiful, melodic and psychedelic song that only Nick knows how to produce. It is adventurous but pretty easy to digest in a same time. Lushful orchestration, dreamy vocals and clever sound manipulation , it's all there. What a marvellous piece! On B side, things get a lot more experimental and wild with "Wonderful Day", what the hell just happened? There's even some free jazz vibes in there, totally trippy stuff. Another excellent nick nicely single, just get it!
Fans of the legendary US 60s experimental/psych rock band The United States of America will be delighted to know, that two of their best actual songs have now been covered by the duo Hanford Flyover! And they do a splendid job at them, as well. A side "Garden of Earthly Delights" sounds pretty musch like the original down to the clear female vocals, but the synth bubles are a nice extra. I just love this version! More analogue synth LFO madness continues on the B side. "You Can Never Come Down" is another up-beat mind-blower, this version a bit more different from the original. I wish I had these songs as an original single for dj use, but these great cover versions will work very well for that too. Amazing!
Gregory Curvey (ex-The Luck of Eden Hall) from Detroit has been pretty active and constant with his new band Custard Flux releasing about an album a year and also playing some live gigs. What started off as a mostly acoustic solo project has now turned into fully electric band thing on the new album Einsteinium Delirium. This is the fifth album by the band and possibly their best effort so far. It is also a concept album based on our historic atomic madness, einsteinium being the highly unstable element first discovered after the first hydrogen bomb explosion.
There are ten songs on the album that flow into each other effortlessly. On the CD version there are just two tracks, A and B side of the vinyl version. Like before, the music is rather progressive with weird scales and also some not so standard rhythms, but somehow everything still sounds very enjoyable, smooth and together. We get complicated riffs, plenty of psychedelic guitar solos, tight and groovy drums and bass, heavenly Mellotron passages and great vocals. This is probably the heaviest album by the band yet, which suits the rather dark subject matter. The sound quality is crystal clear down to the atomic level and I just love every and each song. There are also two very limited lathe-cut singles from the album, "Equinox" with a different version of "Transmutation" and one-sided single of "Right Now Here in Time", but both already sold-out.
The LP version is limited to just 200 copies and made in the UK. The band will also do a mini UK tour in July/August playing for example at Kozfest in Devon and The 20th Dream of Dr. Sardonicus in Wales. I will just happen to be at both, can't wait... Gregory has also contributed to a several Astral Magic releases so it will be great to finally meet him in person. Also his excellent drummer Nick Pruett will be featured on one track on a future Astral Magic album Interstellar Relations... Great musicians. Anyway, do yourself a favour and buy Einsteinium Delirium before it solds out, you will love it. Some copies will be saved for the UK dates as well. The official release date is this Friday!
After working on other project for a while our favourite Swedish folk duo Us and Them is back with a new single! I think the final product will included three tracks, since the promo copy I received has two and there are two on their Bandcamp site now but the second being entitled differently to the promo edition. But is says it's a "Limited edition 3-track CD" there. Mysterious, right? Anyway, let's see what we've got here.
The opening title track is a nice, shortish, summery folk rock piece. You immediately recognize the duo's wonderful style and vibe, marvellous! Just too short, if you as me. "Tear Apart" is a longer, slower, hypnotic and darker piece that also has some instrumental passages. Acoustic guitar and brilliant female vocals, yes, but also synths and mellotron etc. The chorus is a bit more melodic and lighter. I really enjoy this extended, magical piece! "In the Waiting Room" on the Bandcamp site seems to be the same track, so not sure which one is the right title of if the track is devided into two parts on the actual CD single or what. You will ove this one, anyway!
Doctors of Space (Scott Heller and Martin Weaver) released a new limited edition CD (just 100 copies) last month. This is volume 6 in their Astral Sessions jam series and a pretty heavy one. I don't have all the albums in this series, but have enjoyed all I've heard. The four LOOOONG jams were recorded in two different sessions in June and July 2021. I love Martin's guitars on these, sad thing if he really does not plan to play any more guitar in the duo's recordings? I hope I just made this up, but that's what I remember hearing. Here he also plays bass guitar and does the drum programming, so there must be some overdubs on there I guess, or he just switches instruments ultra fast and uses loops. Scott's (Dr Space) synths are as spacey as ever, wonderful. He also plays some (digital) Mellotron and Hammond organ. There is 74 minutes worth of trippy instrumental space music so definitely worth the 10€ the CD costs! You can just buy the digital download, of course. For some reason not all tracks are available for listening on their Bandcamp site at the moment.
The Honey Pot as well as Crystal Jacqueline are some of the Fruits de Mer Records dearest sweethearts and most released artists by them, so no wonder they are also featured in this CD-R introduction series. This collection features 10 tracks that have been previously released on FdM singles, LP's and CD's as well as three bonus tracks.
Most pieces are cover songs (Mighty Baby, The Fleur the Lys, Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Kinks, Jefferson Airplane etc.) but the album also includes five originals for good measure. The music has a very late 60s/early 70s vibe. The last two tracks were recorded live and at least "Shangri-La" by The Kinks is exclusive to this compilation. These guys are great musicians and singers, so you just can't help liking their music! There is nothing thag trippy or spaced-out, so you could even play this on mainstream radio, I guess. Pleasant, rather peaceful and melodic stuff with some folk elements. Check them out!
Jet Jaguar was a cool space rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and they first were active from 2001 to 2011. I used to get review copies of their CD releases back then and loved their stuff that was a hybrid of spacey Hawkwind and cybernetic industrial post punk of Chrome. There was also a double LP/CD Space Anthem on Black Widow Records in 2007 that I really love. This one was mostly recorded live on the group's 2005 Solar Anthem tour but also included some covers recorded in studio. The band later resurfaced with a different crew apart from the commander Charles Van De Kree (guitars, vocals, synths, electronics) and released one more CD, Mysteries of Antimatter in 2015.
This compilation puts together some of the band's best tracks along with a couple of great cover songs. The straight-forward rocker "Dogfight" is maybe more or less a copy of Robert Calvert's "Ejection" but so what? Space rockers get what they need! A super-charged opener. "Autopilot" starts off with a spacey sequencer/vocoder intro and then rocks out in Chrome style. Loving it! In similar vein, "She's an Alien" was always one of the band's stand-out tracks and still sounds cool and exciting. More 90's Hawkwind-styled "I.C.U." is wonderful too like the A side's final, slower piece "Shades of Noir Descending". All tracks on side A were first released in 2002.
On the flip side we have two tracks from the 2004's album Billion Year Spree: the mercilessly rocking "Future Martyr on Supersonic Waves" and the classic "The Last Kings of Space". Next comes an excellent cover of Hawkwind's single track "Lord of Light" and I'm in ecstasy! This was originaly released on Black Widow Record's Daze öf the Undergröund, Tribute to Hawkwind. Also my old band Dark Sun was featured on the Chrome tribute You've Been Duplicated, Burning Chrome To Disc In The Cyberage and that's where the Jet Jaguar's ultra-fast version of "The Need" originates from. This whole tribute was put together by Charles, if I remember correctly (it was twenty years ago...). One more original to finish the album: "Count Geiger's Blues" from "Future Tense". This was strangely the only track I did not remember but it's a really good mid-tempo rocker bringing to mind Farflung and Pressurehed. Phew! What an amazing collection of spacey and cyper punky hits, I just have to start dreaming about the Part 2 right now!
According to online sources, J. Vdek is a Danish guitarist/analog synthesist born in Copenhagen in 1981, studied
at Copenhagen University where in late 1990s he was involved with groups
Kloroform and Free Mechanist Orchestra. He emigrated to U.S. in 2010, now
living in NYC. This limited edition lathe-cut 12" and tape (100 copies each) seems to be his first solo album, though.
James De Leigh helps out on drums and gong on the more rocking opener "Drone Strike by Inferno's Light" that could be easily passed as psychedelic post rock. The rest of the stuff is more eexperimental for sure... The closer to 13-minute "Deadlands" is just dark, ambient soundscapes made with ARP, MiniMoog and Signal Generator. On side B, "Radioactive Sewage" is a bit noisy, electronic, banging and experimental, short thing that ends suddenly. The last track is the 15:42 long "Thermonuclear Mass for 10,000 Cities (Parts I-II) that has a ominous, post-apocalyptic vibe. This one was composed together with D. A. Gardner, who also plays alto & baritone saxophones, ARP Odyssey, tape and effects on the track. The sax adds some jazzy modes for the very experimental and hypnotic web of sound. Later we also get some tribal synthesized beats and the track gets going in a spacey way with also lots of distorted guitar. Again, not exactly my kind of music, but I still got to appreciate this stuff. Check it out!
Sines Of Exquisite Pleasure is a solo project of multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Douglas Em. This minimalistic ambient album was recorded in 1983-84 using MiniMoog, guitar, tapes, electronics, Alpine cow bells and analog & digital delays. It was originally released on tape in 1984 in edition of 100 copies, reissued on tape again in 2022 on Fantasy Audio Magazine and finally on limited edition vinyl LP on Magritte Records last year.
Douglas has been inspired by the tape expreriments of John Gage and modal minimalism of John Adams as well as modular sound esthetic of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. This can be heard on this album as well. There are seven very peaceful and relaxing compositions that give you a sort of healing vibe. Maybe that's where the title comes form. This is not exactly my kind of music (I'm not patient enough...) but I still enjoy the album and music like this aboslutely has it's place in human experience and life. Only 250 copies pressed but still available!
Åtråvärld is the third album by Swedish prog/psych rock band Å (meaning stream in English). I have previously reviewed also their eponymous debut album and second album Ånyo. After those there was quite a long pause, but this one was released in December 2023, maybe this vinyl version limited to 300 copies came a bit later. The main band is still Joel Öhlund (vocals, guitar), Milovan Fredriksson (bass, guitar)
and Erik Wallin (drums) with some quests on sax, flute, synth etc. The album was recorded in their home town Uppsala and the band still sings in their native language.
The strong folk roots are very clearly audile on the first song "Fredmans epistel 9" that is actually written by traditional Swedish poet & musician Carl Michael Bellman (1740-1795). A very nice interpretion with also some World Music vibes! The almost eight-minute "Gånglåt i femtakt" starts off with some farm animal sounds and then goes pretty mystical and progressive. The sax is a nice addition, and there's a cool early 70s jazzy prog vibe. "Transversale varelser" has a nice acoustic guitar and brings to mind some of the more atmospheric songs by Dungen (especially when the flute is added) still sounding pretty original. It also goes rather psychedelic which is cool.
Side B starts off with "Elden" that goes in 7/8 and has some heavier guitar as well. Maybe some King Crimson feel in here and I like it. "Intryck och uttryckt" are two different tracks on the digital version but marked as one track on the LP. The first part is nice, acoustic stuff, but then things start to rock out more in a groovy, psychedelic folk rock way. Some cool jamming and hippie vibes. I really enjoy this album and it is definitely worth checking out if you like well produced, 70s styled Swedish folk/psych/prog rock with great vocals and skillful instrumentation.
I've been following Anton Barbeau's career for decades and reviewing a lot of his releases. I was also lucky enough to get him to play on two of my Astral Magic albums, Magical Kingdom and Sacret Mysteries. This CD-r is the first compilation of Anton's pretty extensive back-catalogue, although only stuff he has relesed on Fruits de Mer Records. This of course means lots of cover versions too, but Keith even allows original tracks on his releases for his special artists like Anton, Bevis Frond, Nick Nicely etc.
An Introduction to Anton Barbeau is a massive, 76 minute album with 19 tracks. Three of the last ones are marked as bonus tracks. The album starts of with one of my Barbeau original favourites: "Psychedelic Mind of Moses". Then follows covers by Hitchcock and Cope, both big influences for Anton. The stream of Anton's own songs as well as more great cover versions (Bowie x 2, Orange Bicycle, Big Star, Traffic, Donavan etc.) is just perfect. The tracks have previously been released on 7" singles, LP's and CD's except two of the last bonus tracks. "Third Eye" is previously unreleased and "Trouble Was Born" has previously only been available on Fruits de Mer Records Live in Glastonbury DVD. The album also features two collaborations: "Dr. Crippen's Waiting Room" with another FdM sweethearts The Honey Pot and "Pleasant Valley Sunday" with The Fishheads featuring Astralasias Marc Swordfish. Nice! All in all, a great compilation to both long-time die-hard fans and new Barbeay listeners as well! Only limited numers available.
The magical Welsh psych folk/rock/pop band Soft Hearted Scientists is back! The recordings of this triple LP started already in 2019 but lots of things happened in between. I've been a big fan of the band for years so was really thrilled when Fruits de Mer announced this release somtime last year. The CD version of the album was already released last year on The Hip Replacement but this version has four extra tracks, most of them pretty long (especially "Waltz through the Weekend" at 16:42!).
Like always, the Scientists conjure up a magical combination of wacky, whimsical humour, simple but highly effective melodies and psychedelic soundscapes in the best tradition pioneered by The Beatles, Syd's Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues, the Stones and many other masters. The sound is still pretty modern and really great. Spreading 16 tracks to 3 vinyl albums is big task but the Soft Hearted Scientists really pull it off. I just love every moment of this album and I can play it several times in a row, no problem. There are some faster songs but mostly we get moody, melodic and atmospheric stuff with great harmonies and beautiful vibes. I've got no difficulties in understanding why Fruits de Mer's Keith is so much in love with this band since so am I... Totally mesmerising stuff and of course highly recommended.
It's been a while since I last told you about what's going on with Astral Magic. Since the release of Sacred Mysteries CD (still available!) there was the very limited lathe-cut 7" Virtual Fixtures / Kinder der Sonne on the Irish label Fuzzed Out & Astromoon. A side from the album We Are Stardust, B side a previously unreleased kraut oriented instrumental. Like before, it sold-out in few minutes.
Then I put out the second 7" lathe-cut single recorded with the Kultti-25 guys in analog studio: Mind Eater / Lurking in the Dark. Only 50 copies made but some still available so be fast! It's a heavy Hawkwind worship thing...
On the 1st of December something really special was released... I've been in contact with ex-Hawkwind singer Bridget Wishart for years and reviewing some of her releases but now it was finally time to work with her on an album! Ad Infinitum is a progressive space rock album that also features Vince Cory and Lauri Kajander on guitars. The CD includes the previous single as bonus tracks. The first 100 copies were sold out in a month but we now have the second pressing available from our Bandcamp site. Fresh news is also that a limited LP edition of 100 copies with new cover design is now on pre-sale in the US! Just be fast to get a copy as they are going fast.
This year's first release was The Hidden Way CD-R limited to 50 copies. As you know I've been working a lot with Shane Beck The Last American Poet. This album has several tracks that I have made for his solo albums as well as one compilation track and several brand-new ones. Musically it is more electronic and experimental but very psychedelic! It seems people have liked it since I only have two copies of the CD-R left, so again, act fast if you want it!
End of Time is an album that was already recorded in 2020-21 and planned as a successor to Magical Kingdom on Tonzonen Records. Since this never happened, I thought it was now time to put it out on my own! It's a cool progressive and psychedelic space rock/pop thing with lots of input by the excellent Jonathan Segel on guitars, violin and mandolin. He also mastered the album again for maximum quality. As usual, only 100 CD's were pressed and for some reason lots still available over here!
I bet many of you are familiar with the author and psychedelic musician Paul Roland, right? He sent me some of his CD's and books about the occult for review years ago, so I sort of got to know him. Been a fan for years, of course. It was still a bit of a surprise when he suddenly contacted me and said that he wanted to make psychedelic space rock with me! Well of course I was in. Within a week or two we had a five-track EP together. Again, Jonathan Segel joined in for some electric guitar, violin and viola, thanks for that my friend. I also want to express my gratitude for the amazing Andy Wainwright who does most of the Astral Magic art nowadays. Contact him if you need some cool psychedelic designs! The creative collaboration with Paul went so smoothly and fast that I'm sure this was not the end of it. 150 copies of the EP have been made on CD and they wil be released on the next Bandcamp Friday March the 1st. There is also a new T-shirt design and plans to also put four of the tracks on a limited edition 10" lathe-cut so follow the Astral Magic Bandcamp site regularly for updates... Check out the EP teaser video for now.
Okay, this is the seventh Dr Space's Alien Planet Trip album and the third with Norwegian bass player Hasse Horrigmoe. Dr Space (Scott Heller) plays synths, Mellotron and Hammon organ. The almost 70 minute albun has six long, very hypnotic, repetive and monotonous instrumental pieces. There are no beats, just some sequencers/arpeggiators give sort of rhythm at times. A simple bass line is often repeated to infinity with spacey synth sounds going all over the place. Mellotron and Hammond offer some variety. Some people might find this boring, but it gives a very weird, other-dimensional vibe that I enjoy! This is definitely not for you, if you want pretty melodies and standard song stuctures, but if you enjoy more abstract and out-there soundscapes you should definitely check this out. Extra points for the amazing cover design by Dave Graham! The CD is a limited edition of 100 copies.
The Golden Hour is the second solo LP by Fred Laird (ex-Earthling Society, Tara's Bulba, Artifacts & Uranium etc.) under this monicker. Fred has also recorded quite a lot of stuff for my psychedelic project Astral Magic. There are also a couple of tapes and a CD(-R?) I have not even heard. Unlike on Mushin (Echodelic Records 2022) that had three long, ambient pieces, The Golden Hour includes nine shorter tracks that are more in the vein of latter day Earthling Society stuff. So, experimental and World music /folk oriented but also more krautrocking. And I love it!
Fred plays guitars, bass, bouzouki, Turkish
saz, organ, piano, harpsichord, pennywhistle, percussion, drum
programming, samples, synthesizer, coral sitar, Hulusi, PO133 Street
Fighter and electronic tanpur while Nick Raybould just adds djembe and shaker on "Invisible JuJu". The album has a wird, otherwordly and esoteric vibe, and although the instrumental tracks are relatively short they surely form their own universes. The sound is not too polished but rather home-grown that adds a charm of it's own. There's a wonderful loner psych vibe going on throughout the album and a suitable amount of variation on the music. My only worry is that it is already too late to find a copy of this lovely album since it seems to be very limited edition but I will start searching right NOW!
Uinumas is the fourth album by this great Helsinki based heavy progressive psych rock trio. I have been following them since the beginning and it's been an interesting journey. At least to my ears they have a style of their own but obviously they also have their influences. I guess it's safe to say they have gone into more progressive direction with this new album, but some of it is pretty heavy too. They have progressed as musicians and the vocals are getting bette rand better too.
There are seven tracks on the album. The A side ("Relentless", "Lumerians" and "After You") follow each other seamessly forming a very nice, constantly changing arch. The energetic bass line of "Skylined" at the start ob side B brings to mind Rush. No synthesizers though, sadly... They would fit in perfectly. "On Mirror Plane" is had more energetic bursts as well as more tranquil parts in good mesure. It strange thet the band's songs seem longer than they actually are. Not because they are boring, on the contrary, bacause they are always evolving and changing with only some parts showing up again. That makes it hard to really get to know the music, but obviously there will also be more to dig into in time. Some Kingston Wall vibes flow by for a moment, and soon the album is finished after some full-energy blasting. I will need to listen to this many times to really get into the bottom of it, but I can honestly say that it's a great and interesting album with lots of talent! Release date for the LP limited to 300 copies is 29.2. and you cab pre-order NOW!
Yahoo, a new album by the spacey doctors from Northern Portugal! The good doctors Space and Weaver and here helped by their assistant Hasse Horrigmoe on guitar, mix an mastering on the third track. I like the title of the albun that maybe refers to the fact that Martin Weaver is not playing guitars or bass in this project anymore, just drum machines and synths. Scott gets to play his new toys Hammond XB-2 and Mellotron, and they sure sound great. Of course modular and other synths are also operated to reach the full out-in-space experience.
We have five, long and improvisation-based instrumental tracks that sometimes have repetitive, hypnotic grooves and sometimes just float in the ether in trippy, experimental and ambient way. "Forward Thinking" even sounds like primitive techno... I love every moment of it so 70 minutes go in a flash. The sound is really great, I think. Very cool stuff!
I guess this is the latest OSC release and initially the limited edition CD was only available for the Bandcamp describers (something I might also have to figure out for Astral Magic?). Anyway, as a long-time friend of Scott Heller aka Dr Space I've been following the saga of the space ship OSC since the beginning and the band never stops to blow my mind!
You would think that if the band has to go back to 2016 jams in Denmark to gather stuff for a CD there would only be some mediocre left-overs available. But no, this is pure killer psychedelic space rock!The band on this release was: Tim Wallander - drums, Magnus Hannibal - guitar, synthesizer (1, 3), Hasse Horrigmoe - bass (1), guitar (2),
Jonathan Segel - lap steel, farfisa, violin, guitar, KG Westman - guitar
(1, 2), synthesizers (3), Jiri Hjort - bass (2, 3) and Dr Space - synthesizers, which of course helps. We've got three long jams in 54 minutes. "Nero" starts off as a weird, sort of alternative reality Western soundtrack where alien cowboys fly and cows have antennas and stuff. After ten minutes the track finds a new direction and gets groovier. Very cool! "Al Pesto" is a slow, melancholic track that brings to mind some classic stuff by Pink Floyd (or even 70's Rainbow!). Might also work for the end scene of some Italo Western where everybody but the sad hero are dead or something... Great vibes, nevertheless, and something different from OSC as far as I can remember. Lovely guitar work and the organ sound is lovely. Of course the trcak evolves and turns into something Santana might have done in 1972. The longest one is the 21:12 "Gamberi" that starts off softly in Pink Floyd style. Later on they kick in some speed and get really energetic. Very nice playing by everybody! All in all, this is a great CD by this excellent improvisational jam group, get it while you can.
