Sunday, April 6, 2008

Astral Social Club #9,Live in Sheffield 16 March 2006,CD-R,2006,UK


Astral Social Club is the pseudonym of one Neil Campbell, a man whose involvement in the UK’s experimental music scene has been well documented. Through his work with the Vibracathedral Orchestra and the Sunroof! guise he has consistently amazed and enthralled listeners, not only bringing together a huge legion of fans but also managing to influence countless young acts. This latest work sees the astral traveler moving into further realms and finally putting a capital ‘c’ on club, bringing in 4/4 beats into the psychedelic fold for a change. You think I’m kidding, I can tell, but I’m being deadly serious, pitted head-on against the shimmering beauty of Campbell’s synthesized pads and patented drones are pounding warehouse beats, the sort of beats you’d expect to hear at some disused Birmingham lock-up, not in the recorded output a man best known for making jams that out-psych Sunburned Hand of the Man. It’s no bad thing though, and as you can probably imagine this ain’t your ordinary dance music as Campbell uses the teutonic beats to inform the path of the devastating drones and noise that grows around them. Elsewhere on the album we are treated to two long-form and more typical pieces of blissful dream-drone, but my money’s on the first track. Excellent stuff.
From Last FM

Wonderful droning noise soundscapes by one of the pioneers of the era.This CD-R was not available for sale and was given free at the concert.
get it here
NOTE:the pic above is a link to a video clip of this performance (found here)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent choice, Sir. Mr. Campbell's Social Club raises the bar with every new installment in this ongoing series. I should mention, though, that Sunroof is one of Matthew Bower's many projects on which Neil has been a guest. Is it possible that you could post Astral Social Club #13?

Thanks lots

Anonymous said...

hey, nice to see this getting an airing ... i'm happy to copy any of my old hard to find releases for you if you like ... don't have time/energy/know-how to post 'em up, but wd happily dub things like asc#13 (50 copies or so) or asc#16 (24 copies)
i'm gonna dredge up some early-80s recordings i made soon too ... reckon i'll get 'em on CDR on music mundane
neil
x

mutantsounds said...

very honoured you commented here N eil...sure we wouldlove to get all this rare stuff yopu talk aboutplease contact me through e-mail for details at:
jbull23@gmail.com