Astro Elevator are Putting Us Into a Kaleidoscopic Trance With Their Latest Single

Astro Elevator, the daring quartet hailing from the vibrant musical scene of Melbourne, have unleashed a sonic storm upon listeners with their latest single, "Kaleidoscopic Trance," released on January 24, 2024. This electrifying track offers a tantalizing glimpse into their forthcoming second album, "Cosmo Vortexia," promising a musical odyssey that transcends boundaries.

Formed in the midst of 2019, Astro Elevator draws inspiration from a diverse array of musical influences spanning the realms of 60s garage psychedelia to the intricate landscapes of 90s and 00s progressive rock. Following the triumph of their debut LP, "Lysergic Liquid Maze of the Psychotropic Triptonauts," the band experienced a meteoric rise in popularity, evidenced by sold-out hometown shows and their inaugural interstate tour in 2022.

"Kaleidoscopic Trance," a compact two-and-a-half-minute musical journey, stands as a testament to Astro Elevator's evolution. The track builds upon the foundations laid by their debut, incorporating complex song structures and a more progressive approach to songwriting. In this latest release, the band's distinctive fusion of driving energy, spaced-out jams, and dueling guitars takes center stage.

Immersing listeners in a swirling maelstrom, "Kaleidoscopic Trance" catapults them into a sonic journey spiraling ever upward. The band deftly navigates the delicate balance between control and chaos, with a formidable rhythm section propelling burning comet-tail guitars through an ascending progression of escalating intensity. The track reaches its zenith with thumping beats and wailing guitars reminiscent of titanic battles, only to clear the air with a pulsating width, leaving audiences in a state of stupefied awe.

All the tracks are crafted and performed by Astro Elevator, showcasing their collective musical prowess. The single was meticulously recorded and mixed by Rohan Sforcina at Head Gap Studio in Preston and masterfully fine-tuned by Lachlan Carrick. Dr Cheeto Feather Pants contributed additional recordings and played organs, while Inktally lent their artistic touch to the mesmerizing artwork design, and Tony Roberts encapsulated the band's essence through captivating photography.

"Kaleidoscopic Trance" emerged organically during an intense creative session, embodying the unmistakable influence of Mars Volta with its chaotic drums and driving guitars. Clocking in at two minutes of unbridled energy and fury, the track invites listeners to embark on a personal and enthralling auditory journey with Astro Elevator.

Astro Elevator · Kaleidoscopic Trance

Backbeat caught up with Astro Elevator to find out more about their influences, team, and upcoming releases and shows.

Can you tell our readers about your new single 'Kaleidoscopic Trance'

Kaleidoscopic Trance is the first single off our forthcoming album. We wanted to make a short, hard hitting, energy packed psychedelic song. The song weaves in and out of an ascending progression with a bombardment of swirling delay drenched guitar solos in the middle, where the song finally releases the tension and breaks free. While it all seems to be chaotic and frantic, the driving rhythm section keeps everything tight and in control. Hopefully the listener will be engaged to wonder where it's all going. The song packs a lot of punch for clocking in at just over two minutes!

Who did you work with for this single, and what does the name of the track mean?

We recorded and mixed the album at Head Gap Studio in Melbourne with engineer Rohan Sforcina. The name of the track comes from the song's lyrics. The ascending progression of the song, along with the ferocious drum fills kind of made me picture something trippy. Like transportation, freefalling and spinning down a tunnel of mesmerising and reflecting colours, so out of that imagery came Kaleidoscopic Trance.

What are some of your go-to records to listen to, when you're either chilling or working on new music?

Lately I've been listening to a lot of 60's garage/psych playlists. Finding forgotten hidden gems from the birth era of psychedelic music. Some other artists that have been getting a run lately include Tom Petty, Lee Hazlewood, The Flaming Lips, The lemon Twigs, Dr John, Elea Craig, The Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, The Pretty Things, The 13th Floor Elevators

Can you tell us about the upcoming album, and what can we expect?

The album is titled Cosmo Vortexia. It has a few really progged out songs, some clocking in at over 6 minutes. We're experimenting with textures in sound and dynamics. We like to challenge ourselves to come up with a sound that's unique and interesting to record and play live. It's an album where the listener can really sit back and go with the flow, letting them join in on a journey into the unknown. It's only 6 songs long but there's always a lot going on

Anything exciting coming up over the next few months?

Yes, we have the single launch of Kaleidoscopic Trance on Feb 9 at The Beast. A second single will be out in a couple of months. We also have a small run of shows planned for NSW in May. Then we'll release the album and continue playing and touring as much as possible

What other bands are from your community, and who should our readers get across?

A few bands that we've played with that stand out, Sons of Zoku, Maisie, Scatter Light, Skerzo, The Black Heart Death Cult, Zelkova

What do you like to do, outside of writing, recording and playing music?

We're all pretty chilled out when we're not working on music. Other interests include camping, hiking, watching weird documentaries, movies, reading, NBA, jujitsu, guitar making. Although music consumes a lot of our time, it's all of the band members main passion and hobby

Any last words! 

Stay High!

INTERVIEW: PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS TALK ’SHYGA! THE SUNLIGHT MOUND’

Kicking off her first interview for 2021, Tori caught up with Psychedelic Porn Crumpets frontman Jack McEwan to hear about their new album, SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound. Jack talked about the impact of COVID on the album, the highs and lows of touring and the battle of the aux cord.

PPC were finishing up a tour of the USA and South America, jumped straight into the Australian Summer Festivals and squeezing in a couple of months to write and record their next album when COVID-19 pulled out their plans.

---

Was the whole album recorded during covid or pre covid?

It was a bit of both. I started working on it late last year when we got back from America, we got home about November and then we had a couple of months in between Falls Festival and Laneway before we were meant to go on tour with Ocean Alley, which was scheduled for I think last April, so the album had to be finished before that cos we were going to use that as a boost, then swing back into Europe. We had South America and stuff, but obviously that all got cancelled. I was actually so happy, like thank god I could become a human again and write and feel like a musician rather than some hungover Contiki traveller just being like, where am I. It was a chance to sort of reflect a bit and we wrote a lot of that material; I spent a lot of the time writing and didn’t finish the record until about the end of July. I gave myself an extra couple……actually four or five months of writing. It was definitely more of a covid album than the others, definitely a covid record.

It was a blessing in disguise then?

Oh yeah, it was a game-changer, It was the first time I ever felt like time had stopped. Do you know that show Bernard’s Watch? It was sick, it was good.

Speaking of shows, did you have any tv shows or movies that were inspiration?

I have always been a huge fan of Mighty Boosh and Monty python, that kinda like, strange, satirical world where everything is comedy central. A good time. Thinking laterally rather than give you a drama piece. Rick and Morty as well, I absolutely binged that when it came out as well. It felt refreshing, like something that had a twist on something that’s already solidified as an idea or a concept. Like Wes Anderson, he always kind of parodies his own movies. If you can get the joke, with Porn Crumpets, we are the most serious, non-serious band, just living in this mean world, so I was like, well let’s have fun with it and see where we can go rather than kind of take it seriously and be the butt of the joke, it’s like, of course we are. Let’s move on with it and have fun with it.

After listening to the album, I have to ask, Jack: What is a tripolasaur?

A tripolasaur? A friend was in a band called bipolar bear, so I thought rather than call it bipolar bear I’d call it tripolasaur, so it’s a man with three brains, or three personalities? Is bipolar multiple or two? I don’t know? If bipolar is two, then tripolar would be a three headed dinosaur. All the lyrics are about waking up feeling rough but you’re carrying on the same way of drinking each night and the audience kind of understands, and its easy to gather why he is feeling rough. Everyone keeps calling it trip-olasaur cos they’re like, this band is a ‘trip’ band, like trip-olasaur and you’re like try!

I also need to know, Is it Shy-ga? Or Shyg-a?

It’s Shy-ga. [Like tiger?] Shyga like tiger! There you go. I was listening to a lot of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. They had an exclamation mark in their name, and I was like, that’s fantastic, it already evoked an emotion before you even listened to it. I knew I sort of wanted an exclamation mark, and I was trying to think of an uplifting word that was like Eureka. I was throwing bits, Shyga, that sounds like something you would say if you get a hole in one! SHYGA! It was too interesting and ridiculous and stupid not to use it. I kept looking at it on my phone and thinking do I take the serious approach or the wonky way? But I’ve gotta do it, I gotta call it SHYGA!

I feel with a band name like yours you kind of need to say f*ck it and do it?

That’s it. I feel like we paved the way to be absurdist’s. But then if we ever tried to be serious, everyone would be like where’s the joke? We kind of ruined both angles now.

You have always been related back to Tame Impala or King Gizz, is that the same inspiration or have you been listening to anything different?

We spent a lot of time when we were touring, passing around the aux cord was a big privilege and everyone trying to outdo the other person with some strange thing they heard. After maybe a year of passing bands that we had all known, we started going back to 70s rock, like T-rex, David Bowie, all those sorts of zingers who are dad rock now. It feels quirky, but funny, but I love this. So, we all started being dads on tour, on the tour bus. That 70s style. Something about it still felt so fun and vibrant and interesting. We wanted to, or at least I did personally, write a 70s rock record that kind of reflected that but kind of put a twist on it into now. So as I was writing, there was meant to be an album called ‘The Greatest Hits of Sir Norton Gavin’ and that was originally going to be a fictional character in the 60s and 70s who was really big in Margaret River or down south and his music got lost but folklorist. I dunno, be funny trying to do that as more of a spinal tap thing. I scrapped the heavy stuff and the folky stuff, we had Pukebox, Mr Prism and Mundungus and I really liked that flavour. So instead of doing it as a ‘greatest hits’, what if we did a 70s record? You know, Google ‘deep dream’, like deep fake where AI is predicting things. What if we could do that, but predict a 70s rock record. So, all these glitched-out guitars would be in there and sound more sort of like, technological and emulate guitars and real drums and real band. That was the sort of idea of Shyga, that with tour diary inserts. What’s my life? With supercomputer picking up synths.

You have been off for a while; how do you feel about touring with Ocean Alley if it *fingers crossed* goes ahead this year?

Yeah - I love those guys. We first met them in Hamburg of all places at a festival and they did our light show, because we played a gig at like, 12 at night, I think. It was sort of like Big Sound, but the European version. They came and watched us and we didn’t have a strobe light so they kept turning the fader on and off, really quickly. It looked great, it was hilarious. We became good friends, then obviously did Laneway together. I feel like that was one of the best Laneways, for me. I just watched King Gizz for five days or whatever it was. It was amazing.

King Gizz and 1975 every day is not at all terrible!

They actually pulled out of one of them, they got sick. Might have been the Sydney one? One of them got sick, so Gizz were like, we’ve got to headline so they did a two-hour set which was OH MY GOD! It rained too so it added to this, I don’t know, it was such a wicked night.

What is the biggest thing you guys have missed from touring?

Nothing at all. I like being safe and comfortable at home. I don’t know. I think having a good yarn with people and catching up, finding the strangest people in the cities that usually seem to be attracted to a Psychedelic Porn Crumpets gig. I would love to do more sightseeing rather than being hungover in the day. I think, not drinking as much and be planning to do something, but then everyone has to be in agreeance so it’s hard. It’s weird. It’s like being on a strange holiday but it’s not. I would like to go to a festival again though. When we are playing early and get the rest of the day off, I miss that. That’s a great day.

A few big artists have come out of Tik Tok and social media in the last year, do you think you still need promoters, labels pushing things for you? Do you think that’s still important or needed in the music industry?

Well, it’s always changing, isn’t it? I think some people find it easier doing the old school bits and pieces and I think for the younger artist or whoever sort of growing up on tik tok, I mean I would have no idea who they are but if they can pack out a venue, they are going to get big eventually and make people pay attention. I think if you can do all of it, it would be amazing. Try and utilise every angle. I am still the worst on social media, I am so glad we have a manager who deals with it. I can’t do it. I feel like an old soul. I feel like I need a Guinness by the fire with a border collie and I’m happy for the rest of my life. I don’t want to keep up appearances.

One of the songs remind me of a song Hocus Pocus by Focus.

I have heard of that song! I love that Hocus Pocus Focus! That’s so ridiculous. I was going to put it on, have the rest of the interview just Hocus Pocus Focus on. That’s great.

Did you have any special equipment or things you used when recording?

Not so much physical hardware, but I got really heavily involved in sort of the software and like how to warp a guitar and just working out how Ableton and all those features I hadn’t used before. All the glitch guitars and basically every single part and vocal is manipulated, warped or pushed up like an octave or even sometimes two or down to give it this strange visual sort of sound. I got so hooked on it I made it the whole flavour of the record but in hindsight I probably went way too overboard with it.

What can people expect from you this year?

I am working on the follow-up. I kind of have it finished, but I want to take my time. Having a month off to see, is this what I want to release or am I just writing for the sake of writing. But at the moment I am enjoying, it’s sort of different elements which is different to what I did with SHYGA!. SHYGA! was one sound and try and write as much in that frame whereas I am sort of going opposite of that now, how many different styles can I put into one record. I think hopefully more enjoyable. I am stepping up production again.

SHYGA! The Sunlight Mount is now available on all good streaming services. Check it out!

FOLLOW PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube