AD ASTRA

A good construction. A German psychedelic / acid combo ACID ROOSTER say their latest album "Ad Astra" (an off-topic but I've listened to some "Ad Astra"-titled albums like KREL's. Of course every Ad Astra is my love), consisting of two long jam sessions, was recorded live in july 2020 in their private garden under the pandemic lockdown. As they say, this creation gives us improvised gigs with so much presence as if we were listening to their performances in the garden. The recording condition, drenched in psychedelic dissonance and distortion, is also good for recording on a field. In addition to that, there is no cheer nor applause by the audience but an atmospheric effect to notify us of their enthusiasm and excitement. We cannot feel enough novelty nor innovative solution via their opuses indeed but who cares? It's wonderful for us to enjoy them so much.

This album features two over-twenty-minute jam sessions both of which would have been performed improvisationally on stage. The opening of the first long trip "Zu den Sternen" is flooded with tension and anticipation. The first phase is quite quiet but massive passion can be heard deeply in it. The closer they get to a star as their 'goal', the more developed their colourful performance sounds. What a primitive but crucial comfort the percussion approach is. Cracked dissected soundscape should represent their strong intention for space rock. This sound appearance reminds us of kinda similarity to some Krautrock jam sessions like Blumen Des Exotischen Eises, Semool, Siloah, and so on.

The following jam gem "Phasenschieber" is another spiritual deployment. Loose synthesizer-oriented dreamy expressions strongly with spacey quirky ambience and flexible illusory electric guitar-based another-dimensional discordance are incredibly wondrous. We can easily guess this auditory explanation could be influenced by Pink Floyd in Water's era. The stream of sounds are shifted gradually with some unrefined noise mess launched in an electronic manner and finally every single tone or sound is unified together. Generally speaking, a long ambient usually sounds boring or monotonous, but some tasty tips have been added into this trippy trip. Splendid conclusion really.