Astral Social Club
(VHF - VHF100) CD $12.00
Selections, edits, radical re-works and remixes of tracks from Neil Campbell and Tirath Singh Nirmala’s instantly sold-out, limited edition CDRs. This dense mega-mix of continually peaking sound-flow, shimmering and throbbing in a truly psychedelic manner, works a tricky hybrid ground between contemporary UK teams like Sunroof! and Vibracathedral Orchestra, and the influence of Kompakt-style pulsating electronic techno.
ASTRAL SOCIAL CLUB / GLOCKENSPIEL
Astral Social Club / Glockenspiel
(Krayon Recordings - KR014) split 7-inch $8.25
Machines groan and distant melodies ascend on the face-chewer by Neil Campbell on one side, while Glockenspiel’s vinyl debut on the flip weaves wooly tones with the harmonics of rubbed toms and bowed metal. A snow-blind haze of feedback, amplified string scrape and analogue electronics.
Starballs
(Chocolate Monk - choc.574) CDR $8.00
Blown-out fuzzed-out ragged sister to the shortly forthcoming pro-lounge Occultics CD / machine flicker, celestial scrota, no mind / make-out music for hermaphrodite Venusians floating through the zero gravity pleasure palaces of Alpha Centauri / Tangerine Fucking Dream, more like / feedback, the only good thing ever to happen to guitars / The Return of The Electric Mistress / there’s probably a tune buried under there somewhere / pennine exotica bionica erectronica (sciatica). Edition of 60
ASTRAL SOCIAL CLUB / TOMUTONTTU
Wet Wheel / Hot Wheel b/w Syvät Svyät
(Tipped Bowler - TBT012) split LP $16.50
On “Wet Wheel / Hot Wheel,” Neil Campbell of Astral Social Club succumbs to the heartbeat throb of house, but tops the bass with a frenetic squall of darting alien melodies. On cursory listen, the elements congeal into honest-to-goodness body music, but the track is riddled with stutters and gaps that flooded synapses fill with aural afterimages. On the reverse, Jan Anderzén of Tomutonttu buries the dance influence, retaining only the genre’s neon shimmer and linear logic. The cuckoo loops of “Syvät Svyät” briefly cohere into musical shapes before casting off, replaced by an ecstatic march of manic squiggles. 150-gram vinyl. Stamped and screened sleeves by Siwa. Edition of 300.