new album: ['ramp] -- astral disaster (live at bochum planetarium)

[doombient]

Hi all,

just to inform you that the new ['ramp] album "astral disaster" will be released on 31st October 2012. The album will feature the live show at Bochum Planetarium of 7th July 2012. There are eight tracks on it (grouped in two sets of roughly 38 minutes each), and if you liked "return" or "steel and steam", I am confident you will most certainly enjoy this one as well. The CD comes with an eight-page booklet with a couple of pictures assembled from studio and live work, plus liner notes written by Archie Patterson of Eurock. Here is some music to listen to:

http://soundcloud.com/doombient-music/ramp-astral-disaster-excerpts

and a bootlegged audience recording ;-) :

http://soundcloud.com/doombient-music/ramp-bochum-bootleg-excerpts

Lots of analogue goodness, and the first proper ['ramp] live album since the release of "oughtibridge".

German KEYBOARDS magazine also published a report on the (technical side of the)show in their current issue which can be ordered here:

http://www1.keyboards.de/magazine/index.html

The CD will be available in a limited edition of 300 numbered copies and can be ordered directly through me. Price for a copy is 15 Euro with shipping and handling included (valid until 31st December 2012). If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with me at stephen at parsick.com.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen.

[doombient]

I thought I´d share this with you:

"STAR'S END Update - 9 December 2012 
Stephen Parsick hears the call of the wild, and answers it. His concert CD Astral Disaster (76'28") plays like a souped-up rebuild of Ricochet or Departure From the Northern Wasteland. Answering The Berlin School's challenge Stephen Parsick and his 'ramp project ratchets up the dramatic tension, nearly matching the intensity of his previous Steel and Steam (2011). Sections of this album extend further into sequencer darkness than even Parsick's closest contemporary (Mark Shreeve and his impressive Redshift project). But to prolong the comparison would undermine Parsick's achievement. Surging and dangerously thrilling Astral Disaster holds us in its grip. The first of two ample live pieces begins with strange drones and an amassing density. Here the composer shows his teeth as sets of deep tones build into complex multi-layered sequencer patterns. Running at full-tilt the bass notes nearly blast out of the speakers - burning in a warm distortion. Gentle electric piano melodies and classic Mellotron voices somehow soften this section's expanding motorized pulse. And with so many rhythms being introduced, brightened, altered and then dormanted the piece never wants for much more in the way of melody. The program concludes with an ascent into brighter territory with crystalline notes echoing through cosmic voices. Parsick focuses the concert program's second half on a more gentle gravity - meant to open vast new spaces within the listener. As a sustaining abstract landscape haunts the soundfield, Parsick works his strange and mysterious spell. Well into this floating zone we sense the engine again turning over. Heightening this work's urgency the sequencer lines gradually run bigger, brighter and bolder - yet the closing moments reveal a tenderness that seemed impossible in the earlier thunder. Never less than intriguing Astral Disaster is not like anything else we will hear this year. Delving deeper into his musical obsessions Stephen Parsick has crafted an album that captures the careening, adventurous spirit of the 1970s without ever seeming overly retro. Astral Disaster, and the concert it was taken from, feels fully willed and artfully conceived.
Please tune in to STAR'S END this weekend for new music from 'ramp and the recent release Astral Disaster

For more on Astral Disaster and 'ramp please access: www.parsick.com

Related Content:
Steel and Steam by 'ramp"

Thanks for this review, chuck!

[drone on]

I have been playing this a lot, amazing album!!  As Ridley Scott said about the "Alien":  threatening but beautiful.  And that's how I'd describe this music.  A totally epic recording.  Highly recommend buying this and the equally powerful Steel and Steam, where Mark Shreeve of Redshift guests in a big way.  Look for my review of these soon here, along with "Return" which immediately preceded Astral Disaster.