ASTRAL SOCIAL CLUB - Happy Horse

Astral Social Club is the current project of Neil Campbell, formerly of the Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof!, The A Band and many more which has given tremendous impact and influences throughout the 2000s to numerous audience and artists. Campbell has been active since the early 80s, and The Wire magazine has said that, along with his friends Richard Youngs and Matthew Bower, he provided the map co-ordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the 80s and 90s". With Astral Social Club, Campbell continues his quest to produce a truly vast 21st century psychedelic music, using alien electronics, overloaded strings, loop disorientation and rhythmic grids often more readily associated with the far end of dance music. "HAPPY HORSE" is a 7-piece, hour-long suite focussing on the more ecstatic, dilated side of ASCs music. Kicking off with a reworked version of the super-limited "Skelp" 7", the propulsive beats and tone float is ceaseless, in the manner of a DJ mix tape from some parallel universe. Sure, there are huge tracts of techno thud underpinning many of the tracks, as on "Horse Cortex" (a distant cousin to "Clarion super-cortex" from the acclaimed ASC/ALog split 12" on fat-cat records), but they dont mind sliding into delerious inaudibility when the free-flying celestial sonics really get into their stride. Although Astral Social Club is largely a solo project, "Happy Horse" includes sonic input from regular ASC collaborators John Clyde-Evans, Phil Smith, Paul Walsh and Stewart Keith." -Happy Prince