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Journery Through Astral Projection CD (2011)
Trajectory Rhythms
Seven Serpents
Growing Mushrooms of Potency
Heartfelt Moon Tripper
Limited to 500 CD.
Limited to 150 CS
Immune Recordings
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PRESS
DROWNED IN SOUND
By way of contrast, Journey Through Astral Projection, the latest release from the prolific Expo ’70 is, in many ways, exactly what you’d expect. That this comment is in no way a negative simply serves to highlight just how consistently excellent Justin Wright’s project has been over the past couple of years. Recorded at the same time as 2010’s fantastic Where Does Your Mind Go?, this is an album that explores similarly rarefied kosmiche atmospheres, without ever descending into the kind of bland new age pastiche that characterizes so many similar transmissions from the US underground. And when Wright’s guitar work is given space to breathe and he sends out sparkling flurries of echo-saturated notes, as on opener ‘Trajectory Rhythms,’ the results are genuinely revelatory. Check out the Immune records website for more details.
BOOMKAT
Justin Wright tends to the epic fields of kosmiche heaven with a majestic trip recorded during the same sessions as his modern classic from 2010, 'Where Does Your Mind Go?'. Again assisted by Matt Hill aka Umberto, these four tracks, recorded at Black Dirt Studios by Jason Meagher, survey aerial vistas and droning scapes as involving as anything we've heard from Expo 70. Quite remarkably, all four tracks are improvised on guitar, analog drum machine, the Hammond-esque Italian Crumar synth, Korg and Realistic Moog - no overdubs in sight - transposing a flawless, realtime flow of moods and atmosphere straight to tape. On the thirteen minute opener 'Trajectory Rhythms' burbling machine pulses entwine with cyclical, gaseous guitar notes on a slow but steady curve into the unknown, gradually expanding as they ascend until we're almost suffering altitude sickness (or is that just acid belly?) and left dazed and alleviated. Meanwhile with 'Seven Serpents' he calls upon the desert bound spirit of recent Earth records and Terry Riley meditations; curling, freeform-Gospel-like Crumar phrases layer into dense, intoxicating drones. But the most powerful piece is 'Growing Mushrooms Of Potency', where moire synth patterns form grid coordinates across the dark sky, blurred with a head-tilting dissonance until elegant machine rhythms syncopate and sketch out pluming constellations across the mind's eye.
AQUARIUS RECORDS
It's been harder and harder to know what to write about Expo 70 records lately. Besides being uber prolific, we've pretty much exhausted out psychedelic stoner space rock thesaurus. Thankfully, this new one changes things up enough to give us something new to work with. Mostly the addition of rhythm, which the band have employed in the past, but never to such an extent. Sure they remain spacey, and psychedelic, and new age-y, and drifty and dreamy, and druggy, and washed out, hazy and gauzy and cosmic and kosmiche, and we could go on, but here, they open up their latest record with what might be their most chaotic and sonically dense jam yet. Starting off all stumbly and abstract, with skittery programmed beats, and loosely strummed guitars, some amp buzz and bits of glitch and random crunch, but then those sounds gradually begin to coalesce, the guitars super reverbed, the rhythms looped and mesmeric, the guitars getting more intense, and more driving, multiple loops and melodies layered, eventually some proper riffs entering the equation, churning beneath clouds of those looped melodies, all the while, that rhythm skitters away, the song getting louder and louder, more intense, easily on of the heaviest things we've heard from these guys in a while, bordering on White Hills / Heads territory there for a minute, before fading back into something much more tranced out and meditative.
And while the rest of the record isn't quite so dense or heavy, the songs definitely display both a cool sort of jammy looseness, as well a penchant for something darker and more dense than usual. "Seven Serpents" minus some spidery guitars is a lush undulating expanse of layered synths, and warm whirling dronemusic, definitely cosmic, and spaced out, minimal, and super mesmerizing. "Growing Mushrooms Of Potency" starts off with a sky full of BBC Radiophonic Workshop / sci-fi bleeps and bloops, before another lo-fi skittery rhythm comes in, and then finally some low slung bass, and some shimmery organ, and we're in full on intergalactic drift mode, dodging stray FX and clouds of celestial glimmer, and then at the very end, the sound shifts, and becomes intensely dark and ominous, like some sort of soundtracky Umberto style creepdrone, which fades out WAY to soon. And then finally, "Heartfelt Moon Tripper" finishes things off with what begins as a hazy big of new age-y shimmer, all glistening crystalline clouds and warm whirring chordal drifts, until about half way through, a dark heartbeat like pulse surfaces, and dense little guitar tangles begin to loop and layer, until the hazy opening layers are shed completely, and replaced with a deep ominous thrum, wound around that sinister pulse, all surrounded by streaks of jagged melody and howling echo drenched sheets of guitar swirl, until a brief bit of Zombi / Goblin like cinematic synthscapery ushers the song to its more ethereal conclusion.
NORMAN RECORDS
Expo 70 has been releasing Kosmische style drone for knocking on a decade now. That’s ages... seriously that’s a long time. ‘Journey Through Astral Projection’ was recorded at the same time as ‘Where Does Your Mind Go?’ with the able bodied help of Matt Hill (Umberto) on bass and drum machine. Justin Wright locks into his groove with guitar, realiistic moog and crumar (an Italian vintage synth from the 60’s). This sounds sweet! I was expecting some blissed out drones but instead we have a more moogy proggy krauty affair. On the opener the drum machine is very much like Suicide with it’s pulsing fuzzyness and it’s swathed in widdly guitar. Nice! ‘Seven Serpants’ has a more churchy disturbed vibe to it with a wonky sounding organ and that mixed in with a 70’s Italian horror vibe. ‘Growing Mushrooms of Potency’ is a psychedelic sounding hotch potch of organs, moog frequencies and a bontempi style beat. It’s fucking good! The whole CD is actually. It’s a lot more interesting and varied than his other albums I’ve heard and overall it’s his most cosmic and psychedelic. So if you fancy 52 minutes of psychedelic funtime then get on the magic bus. Strong work indeed!! - Rating: 5 ...according to our Phil on 30 January 2012.
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BLACKOUT CS/CDr
WHERE DOES YOUR MIND GO? 2XLP/CS
CENTER OF THE EARTH
2xLP 180 GRAM / C52
DEATH VOYAGE CD/CS
SONIC MESSENGER CD
INFINATE MACROCOSM bonus CD
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