Monday, December 6, 2010

Astral Social Club


I remember hearing reports about the Neil Campbell's (who was also a member of trippy-free-music UK group Vibracathedral Orchestra) Astral Social Club CDRs by friends who were performing psychedelic noise-improv over in Britain in the mid-00's but didn't get my hands on any ASC stuff until a friend passed along a high-bitrate archive of ASC CDRs a few years back. If you remember the very crowded "psych/drone" field of play at the time, then you probably know that Campbell was doing some serious genre mashing. ASC tends to swing from Chain Reaction-style resonance-flared dub to Harmonia/Cluster territory to heavy guitar grunge-dirge in a single release. What really appeals to me though, is the mono-mania of how ASC tracks are structured on the Volume 1-7 (really) CDRs. Upon hitting "play", you're immediately thrown into an all-enveloping sound as maximum timbre cycles in and out, gradually, while always maintaining a pastural focus on the main "riff". If you could set-up some sick studio monitors in your car and hit the Autobahn (or maybe just 280-S from SF, CA or the 5 south of Salem, OR) this would be just about the best music ever.

Check out "Track 1" from the Volume 1 CDR for the more hypno-Italo edge of the ASC spectrum. For five picks from the Basic Channel/Chain Reaction-end of the ASC milieu, peep the download.





(P.S. Neil, if you're listening shoot us a link where folks can buy your music direct!)

7 comments:

  1. astralsocialclub (at) hotmail (dot) co (dot) uk will connect you to ASC-central!
    (thanks to pete swanson for pointing me at this blog, + thanks for the kind words too)
    nc
    x

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  2. ibiis rouge s/t collab is totally winning as well.

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  3. ASC always kind of reminded me of craig leon, this track in particular:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwdhH4sXFbU
    maybe neil can speak on it

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  4. and since we're all on the topic may i just say that i LOVE vibracathedral orchestra too!

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  5. second that. [and by rouge i meant rooge]

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  6. i'd not hear craig leon til i heard this track - i'd meant to check out some of his stuff (apart from the obvious recs he produced), but just never got round to it ... sounds pretty good - i'm gonna check that rec soon, thanks for the tip ... maybe of similar provenance, vintage + single-mindedness, but i REALLY like martin rev's 1st solo LP on lust/unlust recs

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  7. yeah, I love that martin rev record too! similarly hypnotic. was actually just recently playing that for jed from operative.
    make sure to check both craig leon LPs..."nommos" on takoma and "visiting" which was self released.

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