Astral Social Club/Alog - Split #20 - 12''/MP3 Out Now

09/11/09

Another high quality, album-length release, the twentieth 12” in our acclaimed Split Series features two artists who’ve carved out very singular, purposeful paths for themselves. Here, both roll out their markedly different, yet somehow complimentary material, the unifying element being a heavily skewed outsider take on dancefloor electronica / techno.

Alog is the duo of Espen Sommer Eide and Dag-Are Haugan. Quirky and unpredictable, they have refused any fixed position, instead embracing the freedom to flit and root in the cracks between strands of minimalism, electronica, post-rock, improv and vernacular musics - merging woozy, stuttering electronica (a la Oval / Nobukazu Takemura / etc.), with rich, shoegazey guitars, freeform improvisation, Scandinavian folk, field recording and the masterful editing and soundscaping of electroacoustic composition.

Named after a derelict social club in his hometown of Mirfield, W. Yorkshire, Astral Social Club is the project of prolific Scottish-born Neil Campbell. Integrating psych-rock and exploratory fusion of the ’70s, early ’90s techno / electronica,’80s post-punk, krautrock, and the thriving home-brew of today’s psych / noise underground, ASC tracks form an unstable, exhilarating slew of densely stacked textural / tonal detail with seemingly no fixed centre, piling electronic and acoustic textures together – spluttering drum machines, gurgling electronics, mangled guitar lines, processed violin and all manner of other sonic detritus.

Out today in the UK / Europe and on the 8th December in the US.

Alog - Live
Astral Social Club.