interesting. I like the sense of inevitability that transpires from the background rhythm.

AI Discography

Release date: 22/04/22

If you would like to review this release, please email info@astralindustries.co.uk

2x12” 180g gatefold vinyl//mastered by Noel Summerville//leaflet included//original artwork by Theo Ellsworth.

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Son of Chi returns to Astral Industries, alongside Spanish artist Clara Brea, for the collaborative release of AI-29. A product of fate, chance experiments, but most of all, sensitive artistry - ’The Wetland Remixes’ exists as a confluence of two kindred musical spirits, a wayfaring epic that draws together a rich archive of ecological field recordings, live instrumentation and higher inspirations. 

Ahead of Hanyo’s concert at ‘Avalovara listening club’ (Madrid) at the end of 2019, the curators (Diskoan & Josephine’ Soundscapes) organised a special dinner and arranged the meeting of Clara and Hanyo. As Hanyo recalls, “It was like stereochemistry. There was an instant match and understanding, and basically we decided in a split second to exchange recordings and to collaborate on future live and studio experiments.”  

The auspicious meeting of the two ignited a remote exchange of materials and ideas, as the world descended into a series of pandemic-related lockdowns. The first of said recordings included the stems of Clara’s ‘Wetland Project’ - a site-specific audiovisual project originally produced for Eufonic Festival (Spain), using field recordings from the Ebro Delta nature reserve (one of the most threatened regions of climate change on the Iberian peninsula). 

From this initial impetus, Hanyo began working on the first sketches of the album back in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Just like their meeting in Madrid, the project developed naturally and spontaneously with extraordinary ease. Later, Hanyo started adding field recordings from the Magic Cave and Wetlands of the ‘Kallikatsou’ (Patmos, Greece) as well as organic and acoustic overdubs, featuring bass, drums, percussion, guitars, oud, piano, hammond organ, wurlitzer, flutes, bells, and mouth harp. 

In the distance, the sound of birds peak through the effervescent wash of the wetland soundscapes. The pass of running water flows deeper into a land full of secrets never told. On the strike of dusk, the silhouettes of shapely trunks and foliage melt slowly into the impenetrable darkness. As darkness passes, light emerges, with exquisite moments of tranquility that seemingly emerge from nothingness.  

Beneath the shimmering veneer of textures, wildlife and melodies, one may hear the deeper references of ’The Wetland Remixes’. With credit to Clara’s input, for Hanyo the album process became a kind of refuge, and ultimately inspired the return to the core of Abstract Sound - what the Sufis call “Saut-i Sarmad.” Such references allude to the spiritual quality embedded in the music - the autonomous process of self-expression, the great mystery. Hanyo: “An ambience like this cannot be created by routine. There is no blueprint. The music has to find you. It’s like a blessing if it happens. You should not interfere, just observe and be impressed...” 

Deep, luscious mind trips as per the classic Chi sound, ‘The Wetland Remixes’ beautifully correlates the interconnecting dots of geography, ecology, and mythology’s forgotten lore.

Buy Now

Side A

The newest installment on Astral Industries is the "Cardamom & Laudanum" LP by Mystic AM – a new project from Rod Modell and label founder Ario Farahani. Monument premieres the track "Thus Spoke Zarathustra/The Djinn" from the release, which will be out on the 15th of July.

Graphic Design: Theo Ellsworth

@astralindustries
@delsinrecords

Cardamom & Laudanum

MNMT Premiere: Mystic AM - Thus Spoke Zarathustra/The Djinn

Taken from Mystic AM's LP Cardamom & Laudanum on Astral Industries, out July 15.

More: www.orbmag.com/music

@astralindustries

Cardamom & Laudanum 

Listen more

Premiere: Mystic AM - Once Upon a Time in Yazd

Astral Industries founder teams up with the one and only Rod Modell from Deepchord to make their debut album using a lot of eastern samples from beautiful Iran, it can't get any better than that. Enjoy.
@astralindustries
@deepchord

Premiere: Mystic AM - 03 The Dervish (AI30)

Release date: 15/07/22

If you would like to review this release, please email info@astralindustries.co.uk

2x12” 180g gatefold vinyl//mastered by Noel Summerville//original artwork by Theo Ellsworth.

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Emerging from a thick spiralling haze, is the debut album from Mystic AM - a new project from Rod Modell and label founder Ario Farahani. Conceived as an immersive fictional soundtrack piece, the release tells the story of a traveller, some centuries ago, and the rather intense metaphysical experience he unexpectedly stumbles into whilst taking shelter on a hot desert night at Zein-o-Din Caravanserai, near Yazd in Persia. Dusk envelopes the vast barren landscape as the protagonist enters the ribat, treasures of woven silks, ornaments and exotic spices glint under the flickering oil lamps, swirls of perfumed vapour dance mesmerisingly in the darkness. As the music unfolds the events of the passing day quickly melt away, and the unsuspecting traveller is plunged into an otherworldly dimension. 

Utilising an extensive collection of old Iranian records as source material, the album is an intoxicating mise-en-scéne of whispering melodies, undulating rhythms, and atmospheric sound details. An active buyer of old Iranian music, Ario began extracting and editing samples from the records acquired during frequent trips to Iran over recent years - during which the mood and flavour of the project began to crystallise. Once handed over to Rod for further processing and arrangement, the album took its final shape - an endless tapestry of sights, sounds, and memories that fade mysteriously into the night’s reverie. Textures seep into one another in washes of colour, and hallmarks of classical Persian sounds filter through - the slow stroll of the daf, scintillating runs of santoor, and solitary lines drifting out of the kamancheh. Bridging the realms of the real and the imaginary, the collaboration signals the first contribution to Mystic AM’s enigmatic concept.

Twilight / The Great Mystery

The Conjuring

Entering the Sublime

Caravanserai / Den of Thieves

Release date: 19/08/22

If you would like to review this release, please email info@astralindustries.co.uk

2x12” 180g gatefold vinyl//mastered by Noel Summerville//original artwork by Theo Ellsworth.

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AI-31 sees the debut release from a new collaboration between Samuel van Dijk (Netherlands) and Rasmus Hedlund (Finland). Both key proponents to the scene in Northern Europe, they come together with mutual understanding and a common vision to sound. Dialog acts as a conversational exchange that sees the interplay of dynamic frequencies, evocative imagery and contemporary sonic art. Spread across four sides, the album as a whole exists as a kind of metaphysical process, eternally growing and contracting — change is the only constant, marked by a continuous progression of sound and space.  

Expansive, deep, and at moments arresting, Dialog unfolds with sweeping soundscapes and shimmers with tactile sonic details. A chasmic rift of scintillating drone structures, each layer exposes a series of ever-deeper shades. In a play of dynamic dualities, the pair harnesses both earthly materials as well as access to more ethereal dimensions in the music. Side A begins with sub-terrestrial ruptures, gestating in a process of constant elemental changes. Rattling hits sputter amongst a state of nascent chaos, yet continues to be maintained in self-regulating stasis. Side B sets a more introspective tone, whispering with ghostly artefacts and bubbling synth lines, before building into a driving energy of layered field recordings and mechanistic timbres. The essence of form continues to be contested, until it subsides into momentary calm on side C. A cleansing period of soft drones float into the space and the pace slows, washing away remnants of past. The journey continues with side D’s conclusion - a solemn contour that reaches its internal extent, to then finally return to its source.

Side D

Taken from Dialog's self-titled LP on Astral Industries, out August 19.

More: www.orbmag.com/music

@astralindustries
@rasmus-hedlund
@mohlao
@dialog-sound

Dialog

Premiere: Dialog - Side A

Full stream of Son of Chi & Arthur Flink's "Part One," taken from their upcoming EP The Fifth World Recordings on Astral Industries, out October 21.

More: www.orbmag.com/music

@astralindustries

The Fifth World Recordings

Premiere: Son of Chi & Arthur Flink - Part One

Son Of Chi & Arthur Flink - Part Two
The Fifth World Recordings [AI-32 / Astral Industries]

Produced by Hanyo van Oosterom & Arthur Flink
Mastered by Noel Summerville
Artwork by Theo Ellsworth
Released by Astral Industries from London, UK
Release Date : October 21st. 2022
Format - Vinyl & Digital

AI-32 signals the arrival of ‘The Fifth World Recordings’, by Son of Chi (Hanyo van Oosterom) and long-term collaborator Arthur Flink. A tribute to the late Jon Hassell, who passed away in 2021, the album connects a deep running thread that goes back to the source of Chi project. Carrying on from where Hassell left off, the album takes inspiration and references from his Fourth World music concept and the ancient Hopi tradition of Native America. Illuminating the subliminal space of the arising Fifth World, Son of Chi pays respects to an inimitable force in contemporary music.

Hassell’s ‘Dream Theory in Malaya’ forms a touchstone to Hanyo van Oosterom’s musical journey, which soundtracked long, deep and reflective periods living in the cave of the Kallikatsou (Patmos, Greece) back in the early 80s. This period resulted in Hanyo’s track as Chi - ‘Hopi’ - in 1984. Hanyo met Hassell shortly after in 1987 at his “The Surgeon in the Nightsky” concert in Rotterdam - it wasn’t until twenty years later that Hanyo invited him for two magic nights of “Instant Composing Sessions” with the Numoonlab Orchestra (with a host of other artists) at the LantarenVenster, the very same stage where Hassell had performed in 1987 and also where Chi did their first live performance.

Dreamful, mysterious, prophetic, the Fifth World Recordings features the quiet yet elaborate sound of Chi awash with rich instrumentation, field recordings, and old stories by the firelight. Sketches were created with drones, loops, and soundscapes, with which Arthur Flink (also a member of the Numoonlab Orchestra) jammed on trumpet. Channelling Hassell’s idiosyncratic style, floating melodies and lyrical improvisations are parsed into the mix, where Hanyo has processed and manipulated the recordings, also referencing Hassell’s exotic scales and unique harmonics.

Additionally, the wah Bamboo flute at the closing piece is an homage to the works of Chi co-founder Jacobus Derwort (1952-2019). For this piece Hanyo used his first bamboo flute he made at the cave of the Kallikatsou in 1984. Arthur Flink answers in counterpoint with the wah trumpet, almost like the intuitive communication of the nightbirds... 

Son Of Chi (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
https://www.facebook.com/hanyovanoosterom
https://www.facebook.com/chifactory

Arthur Flink (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
https://www.facebook.com/arthur.flink

Astral Industries
https://soundcloud.com/astralindustries
https://www.facebook.com/astralindustries
https://www.instagram.com/astralindustries
https://astralindustries.bandcamp.com

Oslated.
http://www.oslated.com
https://soundcloud.com/oslated
https://oslated.bandcamp.com
https://formaviva.com/oslated

Part Two

Support & Buy

Son Of Chi & Arthur Flink - Part Two [Astral Industries]

Release date: 27/01/23

If you would like to review this release, please email info@astralindustries.co.uk

180g vinyl//mastered by Noel Summerville//original artwork by Theo Ellsworth.

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Berlin based sound artist Sa Pa delivers AI-33, titled ‘Atmospheric Fragments’. Originally intended as a soundtrack to accompany ten short experimental films as part of a physical exhibition in 2020 curated by Manon Bernard, Atmospheric Fragments was alternatively premiered online as a digital showroom - with its music performed and recorded both live and independently in 2021. 

Atmospheric Fragments was conceived as a collaborative audio-visual project, positing the viewer inside a sonic boom of introspective parenthesis and offering a place for internal dialogues under the circumstances of a largely unknown and rapidly changing modern world. 

Sa Pa’s work presents a fresh sonic reinterpretation of urban landscapes, skylines and modern environments, procuring from its source material a whole new kaleidoscopic world of its own. The record consists of two mixes - ‘Studio’ and ‘Live’ - which demonstrate a deep explorational study of our everyday surroundings, plunging the listener into a realm of heightened sense experience and microscopic detail. Where the ‘Studio’ mix embodies the precision and management of the studio workspace and is more ambient in nature, such intricacies are exchanged for a larger, livelier sound stage and alternative sonic material in the ‘Live’ mix. 

A nebulous ocean of shifting spaces and effervescent textures, Sa Pa augments and modulates field recordings into a fluid and ever-evolving narrative. Seen through a viewfinder of deep and immersive observation, new transients, momentary artefacts and poetry in motion begin to reveal itself. In a world caught in momentary stasis, Atmospheric Fragments is a forensic inquiry into our perceptive environment, with its augmented lens placing us on the cusp of the ungraspable.

Live Mix

Taken from Sa Pa's Atmospheric Fragments LP on Astral Industries, out January 27.

Pre-order: https://astralindustries.bandcamp.com/album/ai-33-atmospheric-fragments
More: www.orbmag.com/music

@astralindustries

Atmospheric Fragments

Premiere: Sa Pa - Studio Mix

"Free the party, for the people"

Modular synth + compressor

Mixed in synth
mastered

F-T-P Drone

Peacefully trip on @nferee 's various 

#autremusiqueapaisee 
#ama

Atomic Moog - Healing

🌲 Monument is a global community bound together by the transformative power of music, art and human connection.

Join our magical Festival in 2024: https://festival.mnmt.no/

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Bookings and all label enquiries: info@astralindustries.co.uk

Please, no demos.

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Artists: Deepchord, Wolfgang Voigt, The Chi Factory, Heavenly Music Corporation, Waveform Transmission, Sonmi451, Atom™, J.Derwort, Shorelights, Multicast Dynamics, LF58, The Abyss Within Us, Monolake, The Humble Bee, Son of Chi, Lucid Dreams, Mystic AM, Dialog, Sa Pa, Toki Fuko, Rod Modell, Ear to Ear.

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AI-01: Deepchord - Lanterns
AI-02: Wolfgang Voigt presents Rückverzauberung live in London
AI-03: Chi - The Original Recordings
AI-04: Wolfgang Voigt & Deepchord - Colours of Time, re-interpreted
AI-05: Chi Factory - The Bamboo Recordings
AI-06: Heavenly Music Corporation - Lunar Phase
AI-07: Chi Factory - The Kallikatsou Recordings
AI-08: Waveform Transmission - V 2.0-2.9
AI-09: Chi Factory - Red Lantern at the Kallikatsou
AI-10: Deepchord - Immersions
AI-11: Heavenly Music Corporation - In a Garden of Eden
AI-12: Chi Factory - The Mantra Recordings
AI-13: Sonmi451 - Nachtmuziek
AI-14: Dots - Dots
AI-15: J.Derwort - Bamboo Music
AI-16: Shorelights - Bioluminescence
AI-17: Multicast Dynamics - Ancient Circuits
AI-18: Chi Factory - Travel in Peace
AI-19: LF58 - Alterazione
AI-20: Waveform Transmission - V 3.0-3.9
AI-21: The Abyss Within Us - Life in a Circle
AI-22: Wolfgang Voigt presents Rückverzauberung Exhibition
AI-23: Monolake - Gobi. The Vinyl Edit 2021
AI-24: The Humble Bee - A Miscellany for the Quiet Hours
AI-25: Son of Chi & Radboud Mens - The Transition Recordings
AI-26: Multicast Dynamics & Sid Hille - Metamorphosis
AI-27: LF58 Live at Brancaleone
AI-28: Lucid Dreams
AI-29: Son of Chi & Clara Brea - The Wetland Remixes
AI-30: Mystic AM - Cardamom & Laudanum
AI-31: Dialog - Dialog
AI-32: Son of Chi & Arthur Flink - The Fifth World Recordings
AI-33: Sa Pa - Atmospheric Fragments
AI-34: Toki Fuko - Spirit Medicine
AI-35: Rod Modell - Ghost Lights
AI-36: Ear to Ear - Live Recordings
AI-37: ???

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MNMT Premiere: Mystic AM - Thus Spoke Zarathustra/The Djinn

MONUMENT

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