Armchair Astronaut - Wireless Music for the Exit Generation

UMB - Becoming Undoing - New Release

2008-05-16T23:07:00.007+01:00

B e c o m i n g
U n d o i n g
New sounds from
Under Mother Bungalow - released May 2008

For purchase details contact us

Extra Special Limited Edition

New sounds from Under Mother Bungalow - released
May 2008

"Epic ... a journey through the shattered glass of the bungaloid"

"... on the edge of the cliff ..."

Extra Special Limited Edition

azimuth - new CD from Tomas Hiltz

2008-05-07T22:29:00.006+01:00

The long-awaited 2008 release from Tomas Hiltz is azimuth and it is available now
E-mail armchair astronaut for purchase and information.

See more at Tomas Hiltz

a z i m u t h

('as-sum_t')

the ways

the ways or directions a person faces

Tomas Hiltz works primarily with electric stringed instruments and then
explores and corrupts the sounds at his disposal.

The aim is for gigantic washes, trickles, sparks.

To seek utopia in sound.

The music starts with experimental improvisation that explores silence,
noise, live electronics, texture and abstract sound.

Tools, fingers, electronic devices, effects, loops and anything else to
hand are used. Nothing in the room is safe.

Tomas is a musician, composer and sound artist who combines manually and
electronically generated sound.

Organic sound becomes processed, digitized, and abstracted. Inorganic
sound becomes self-replicating and animated; and musical elements such
as guitar are defamiliarized from their traditional associations,
freeing them to participate in the larger aesthetic possibilities of
sound.

Hiltz works with recorded media, musicians, video, and site specific
sound installations. He performs solo or with small ensembles.

Tomas is from Hamburg in Germany and records eclectic electronica.
Rumours that he is in fact Richard's invisible friend have so far proved
to be entirely unfounded.

Azimuth was recorded during 2007 and 2008 in Brighton, UK.

Richard Miles: guitar, fretless guitar, loop, electronics, voice,
programming David Tribe: bass, guitar, loop, electronics Tomas Hiltz:
editing

For further information please go to:
www.myspace.com/tomashiltz
www.armchair-astronaut.com

Lewes Arts Lab Performance on You Tube

2007-12-26T01:02:00.001Z

You can see the 16/12/2007 Under Mother Bungalow performance at the Lewes Arts Lab evening on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/v/BcdYiOAT6qQ&rel=1

ArtSchism: Christmas Rearranged

2007-12-14T04:40:00.000Z

This Sunday, Under Mother Bungalow present 'The Bleak Midwinter' a nine minute live audio visual summoning of the spirits of Christmas past and present, as part of ArtSchism: Christmas Rearranged.

16th December 7.30pm St. John Sub Castro, Lancaster Street, Lewes
£5/£3. Mulled wine will be served. Profits to church roof fund.

Heres a word from the guy putting it on, Tom Mugridge:

"Basically the scenario is that it's a kind of "alternative" (hate
that word but you know what I mean) xmas concert, with mostly local
people playing their own interpretations of carols or Winter-themed
music. It's in a church, St John sub Castro, that's on a very ancient
site in the town; we hope there will be some sort of "spitirual" feel
about the event, though it's not motivated by religion of any
particular stripe. The church organ will be used; Chris Cutler,
drummer from from Henry Cow, Pere Ubu etc will be playing on a couple
of the songs; there's a strong folk-music tradition in Lewes so a few
of the performances will reflect that; there's the more experimental
aspect with Under Mother Bungalow, Hamilton Yarns, and Barbara Keal - who makes giant
ceramic pots and sings into them, using only the natural
amplification from the pots; Nick Collins' 16mm films and of course
no Lewes Arts Lab event would be complete without some bagpipes..."

Bungalow at St John Sub Castro Lewes 16/12/2007

2007-12-12T20:41:00.000Z

Under Mother Bungalow are doing a live 10 minute performance at the Lewes Arts Lab event on Sunday 16th December 2007 in Lewes Sussex - at the St John Sub Castro (event starts around 7:30 I think). The church is a fine building and will be a great venue and Under Mother Bungalow will be making use of it's fine pipe organ. There will be plenty of other sounds and visions to warm you through the winter evening.

UMB Live on Radio Rocket 11pm 27th October

2007-10-26T11:47:00.000+01:00

Under Mother Bungalow will be performing live on the Lewes Bonfire radio station RADIO ROCKET at around 11pm on 27th October. The session will be up to an hour long and is on the Arts Lab show hosted by Tom Mugridge.

The show is streamed so you can listen wherever you are - go to www.rocketfm.org.uk/streaming/index.html

The station broadcasts to the Lewes area (South Coast UK) on FM at 87.8 MHz

Crossing Europa - new music video from Tomas Hiltz

2007-06-15T20:12:00.000+01:00

Tomas Hiltz - a long time collaborator with Armchair Astronaut has a new 16 minute video with full Hiltz soundtrack - CROSSING EUROPA - and we are proud to present this exclusively here from the Armchair Astronaut mission control. It is a stunning ride - sit back and enjoy .... to watch the video click on the image or go to the Armchair Astronaut Videos Page where you will find a varied assortment of visual sound feasts.

Penthouse Event

2007-03-12T21:44:00.000Z

Armchair Astronaut and Crooked Stylus would like to thank everyone who came to and contributed to the Under Mother Bungalow live transmission at the Penthouse in Brighton on March 1st.

Special thanks to guests Andrew Liles and Matt Waldron, for their inspired sonic alchemy; Katie Etheridge and Daniel Jones for live visual link up and camera work; Sarah and staff at the Penthouse, the last refuge in Brighton, and to all friends old and new who made it.

The photographs were taken on the evening by Stephen Burch (Flickr collection)

Under Mother Bungalow plus Special Guests

2007-02-25T22:00:00.000Z

Under Mother Bungalow are performing - 1st March 2007 - 8:30pm at the Penthouse, Brighton with very special guests Andrew Liles and Matt Waldron.

Upcoming Live Performances!

2007-02-06T22:11:00.000Z

Exciting news is that Under Mother Bungalow are expected to be performing at the Penthouse, Brighton for a March 1st special. We will be posting up details of this rare public live performance soon. Watch this space!

Other live news is that Marcus Ripley, of both Wireless and Under Mother Bungalow, will be playing in the live lineup of Nurse With Wound at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre on 3/3/07.
The line-up will be - Steven Stapleton, David Tibet, Colin Potter, Andrew Liles, Matt Waldron and Marcus Ripley.

Marcus first played with Nurse With Wound in December 2006 at ATP, Minehead.

For details and tickets(selling fast) go to:
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/music/productions/nurse-with-wound-860.

The tiny world of Armchair-Astronaut. Autumn 2006

2006-08-19T22:24:00.000+01:00

We at Armchair Astronaut are delighted to announce the arrival of 'Psychic Radio: Special edition' volumes 1 and 2.

Each is a two disc set comprising freshly burnt copies of our fantastic Psychic Radio pod-casts, and a full length DVD-R with film and animation of macabre natural splendour by Ben Abbo. Each features one of Wireless's classic releases, 'Terminal Broadcast Station' and 'The End of Summer.' Snippets of these films can be found under the video page of this site.

The pod-casts are an ingenious amalgamation of material available in some form or other from our catalogue, plus otherwise unreleased material from the archives.

The pod-casts are available free for a limited period of time, then as a new one comes online, the earliest comes off. They will then only be available as a CD-R bought from the catalogue.

Armchair Astronaut are currently researching suitable venues or spaces for a live performance by Under Mother Bungalow, details will be posted when we get them.

Armchair Astronaut collaborator and performance artist Katie Etheridge will be presenting The Hollow Lady at the Coastal Currents festival in Hastings on the afternoon of the 23rd September.

The Hollow Lady literally opens herself up in an unsettling exploration of inner space in which the audience become implicated in a bizarre spectacle of examination where boundaries between scientist and specimin are beyond fluid. Take a tour through the window on within¹ to find out what lurks in the void between spine and skin. With soundscape by Armchair Astronaut.

For further details of this free live art event visit www.freshfest.org and www.oldclockshop.co.uk

Wireless with Richard Durrant

2006-07-24T22:55:00.000+01:00

Back in the spring 2005, Armchair Astronaut shamanistas Wireless took part in an evening of free improvisation with the guitarist Richard Durrant. The resulting track "Soft Moonlit Landings" (8mins 40secs) appears on Richard's "Music from the Colourdome" CD on LongMan Records (LongMan 040CD). To quote Richard Durrant on the sleevenotes of the album: "The session took place in a warehouse under a viaduct. It was great to sit and play with them, it felt like a musical seance."

It was engineered by Nick Pynn and Darius Acashic.

You can purchase the album online at LongMan-records.com

You can hear Wireless tracks and find out more at the Wireless section at Armchair-Astronaut.com

Mountains Bubble Under

2006-07-05T13:43:00.000+01:00

The Debut album from Under Mother Bungalow - "Mountains Bubble Under" is available from Armchair Astronaut Recordings - go to http://www.armchair-astronaut.com/ and click on Buy CDs for details on how to purchase this limited edition - handcrafted CD. To listen to a 5 minute excerpt from Track One go to the Under Mother Bungalow page and enjoy this "white- knuckle adventure of fucked- up music, beauty and noise"

Welsh Walk Wireless Video

2006-07-05T10:19:00.000+01:00

A short excerpt from the hour long WIRELESS "Welsh Walk" video is now up on the Armchair Astronaut videos page . The video was used by WIRELESS a number of times at gigs and was created by Ben Abbo - keyboard player in Wireless. The clip is from the first half of the video which is based on footage from a walk up a Welsh mountainside with a Video Recorder hanging on cable at ankle level.

The music track used is taken from the WIRELESS album "Terminal Broadcast Station". Brooding classical industrial melancholia. Swan song to a dying planet. Terminal Broadcast Station is over an hours worth of timeless psycho-metabolic brain music. Powerful as it is beautiful.

You can get details on buying Terminal Broadcast Station or any other CDs on the Armchair Astronaut label by going to our BUY CDs page.

If you would like to purchase the full "Welsh Walk" DVD for £8 inc p&p then send an e-mail to ben@wireless-music.com and we will arrange it.

Summer Solstice Special Podcast

2006-06-25T23:00:00.000+01:00

The Psychic Radio Summer Solstice Special Podcast is out now FREE ! and available at http://www.armchair-astronaut.com/ . A Thirtythree minute audio commute through the suburbs of nearby galaxies - serene then twisted, deep then floating, gently barbaric then melancholic - a really VERY good recording - NOT TO BE MISSED !

Psychic Radio podcast one - just beamed in

2006-05-16T00:00:00.000+01:00

The ArmchairAstronaut webzine Psychic Radio has just released PODCAST 1 with some extraordinary sounds - onto an unsuspecting world. Tune in, go to Psychic Radio issue 1 where you can here the broadcast or subscribe from our home page http://www.armchair-astronaut.com/

Armchair Astronaut - meta music 2006

Apocalyptic thoughts for the week.

2006-05-02T23:55:00.000+01:00

Belief is the enemy of wisdom.

Convictions the enemy of thought.

When absolutely certain about anything...you will most definitely be wrong.

That your life is speeding up; is but a measure that your time is running
out.

Perceptions alter truth.

Thought for today

To die is to find that special place in the sky, out-numbering the stars and
the insects, and the atoms which exist in their various states of doing.
And by the voices and on reflection of the myriad states of being.

Sucram Sisongami 2/5/06 ev.

Wireless - experimental 4 piece - attempted descriptions

2006-04-23T00:34:00.000+01:00

Many people have attempted to describe the sounds and journeys that Armchair Astronaut's oldest shamanic beat combo WIRELESS in create - here are a few to be going on with:

The music you hear in a coma

Transmissions between stations of consciousness

Dreamstate Soundscapes

Soul music for the dark heart of the cosmos

Telepathic orchestra

Way out sounds for the exit generation

Music realised as a meta language, to speak between centuries, accrosscultures and divides

The medium for total information immersion

A language that talks to the body, as well as the mind

Innerworld music, mapping the mindscape

The universal hum, the static backdrop to dreams and nightmares

Wireless music is telepathy music

It maps the breathless expanse of inner mind travel

A journey through the body of light

Wireless demonstrate music evolving before your ears. Not as entertainment,but as a journey
They take the journey seriously, as they do the destination

Wireless music maps new territories, investigates ever more arcane regions
As a result of the enquiries, more doors exist than the walls to contain them
Telepathic synergy therefore remains the crux of the operation

Guided by wires, speaking without tongues

Mining a seam to themselves, Wireless have tapped into a hidden source ofmind altering, bowel-churning music, to explore the wealth of auralpossibilities made available to the intrepid

Bleached, sunkissed organic dronedelica

Innermindseye music

Not for the weak hearted

Avant-garde experimentalists Wireless indulge us listeners to a cerebraljourney through quite spectacular inner vistas

The music you hear in a dream

The biological static boiling through the mind

Sound of sunlight on closed eyelids

The hum of blood

The passage of thoughts

Born out of dreamstates

Tapping the hidden blueprints, the turning points of the year, of theplanets. Secret codes to the universe itself. Music- the science betweenmemory and mathematics encoded in the very stuctures of our psyches, of ourmental functioning. The higher language beyond thought and rational.Wireless tap the deepest realms hidden within sound.

Honeybee track with Jamie Lidell

2006-04-23T00:18:00.000+01:00

Armchair Astronaut have released for free enjoyment the fruits of a chance meeting between the Armchair Astronaut group HoneyBee and the great Jamie Lidell. The track on the site is Nosebleed part 1 and is available at the HoneyBee page on the Armchir Astronaut site. For more on Jamie Lidell you can go to his site at http://www.jamielidell.com.

Nosebleed - does what it says on the cover ! give it a whirl and clear your sinuses.

Psychic Radio - the Armchair Astronaut WebZine

2006-04-16T23:44:00.000+01:00

Psychic Radio is the WebZine for Armchair Astronaut Records
and you can find Issue 1 online at our Psychic Radio Page

Here reproduced is the article on the great WIRELESS combo - mainstay of the Armchair Astronaut stable.

WIRELESS are a group of experimental artists. Their adventures in sound and music have been emanating through the ethers since January 2002, and are winning them listeners from across the musical spectrum.
Described variously as “amazing head-burst movie music”, to ”soundtracks for the seriously disturbed ” . WIRELESS have crafted together a compelling body of work. Their sound takes the listener on a journey through a series of sublime landscapes, through crumbling cities and deserted cathedrals, through the air over forgotten civilisations, from deep beneath the oceans, to deeper into space.
Mining a seam to themselves, WIRELESS have tapped a rich source of mind altering, bowel-churning music, to explore the depths of aural possibilities made available to the intrepid.
The music you hear in a coma--Transmissions between stations of consciousness--Dreamstate Soundscapes.
Mapping the hidden blueprints, the turning points of the year, of the planets.
Secret codes to the universe itself. Music- the science between memory, mind and mathematics encoded in the very structures of our psyches, of our mental functioning.
The higher language beyond thought and rational. WIRELESS tap the deepest realms hidden within sound. In the pursuit of meaning, the scenery can be terrifying.
WIRELESS make music which evolves before your ears. Not as entertainment, but as a journey for the senses.
They take the journey seriously, as they do the destination. The music maps new territories, investigates ever more arcane regions.
Telepathic synergy remains, as ever, the crux of their operation. Guided by wires, speaking without tongues.
WIRELESS make unsafe music beautiful. Music which exists and addresses its own corporeal bubble. Adrift from any safe houses of musical convention. Orbiting their own star, or lost between planets. Giant rusty liners buckling on impact and sinking on a time lapsed audio ocean. Crackles from transmitters placed in the afterlife. The whispers and echoes of the chattering dead. Snatches of lives in parallel worlds. Transmissions from the ethers, interference from sources unknown. To witness Armageddon, and get it down on tape, to play it on reverse, time and time again.
WIRELESS make dangerous music. Both, for the listener and the group themselves. Live executions, public or private, require active listening and response, to engage and then concentrate. Every execution potentiates a transformation. Nothing is at rest.
All involved experience a personal head journey, a sense of having come through to the other side of something, a sense of arrival.
Some listener’s report shifts in mood or consciousness, altered perceptions of time etc. Do not panic, this is quite understandable and a healthy response to the experience itself. Whilst WIRELESS take every measure possible against personal discomfort, the nature of live executions will always permit the unexpected to happen. WIRELESS cannot be held responsible for any after effects of listening.

Armchair Astronaut is an umbrella !

2006-04-12T21:51:00.000+01:00

What?

Armchair Astronaut is an umbrella organisation for experimenters at the outer edge of spontaneous creativity.

It has evolved from a group of performers, musicians, artists, and film-maker’s who co-operate and interact on many creative levels. They share personal and collective visions, collaborating on projects which draw on their individual strengths and unity of purpose.

Why ?
To carry out experiments in word, image and sound that confront assumptions of who and what we are in the world today. To make music that dislocates our fragile sense of our place in this world, to open the mind to its sense of place in the next. To develop simple and practical approaches to the exploration of the fifth quarter. But mainly for the fun of it.

Visit http://www.armchair-astronaut.com/ and listen to some of the cutting edge experimental music there. There are also videos to view.

Welcome to the Armchair Astronaut Blog

2006-04-10T13:33:00.000+01:00

The role of music or sound making has, since it’s most primitive origins been central in the practice of attaining ecstatic states of consciousness. Indeed, the initial purpose of making music was to induce a sense of transformation in the listener, for healing or procuring a magical result. It was a branch of shamanism, a form of sorcery.

Here at Armchair Astronaut we encourage, record, involve and collaborate to achieve the essential breakout from the mundane.

Our home is http://www.armchair-astronaut.com/ and you will find recordings, videos, texts, images, links and microscopic audio meteor dust from our expanding universe.

The home page is a tree - depicting many of the links between people and bands that are connected to our organisation and label - including the members of Wireless and Under Mother Bungalow - Paul Harrison , Ben Abbo, Marcus Ripley and Richard Miles and branching out to many others.

The site is being built and version 1 will be out on April 16th 2006 - but you can visit now and see the Front page - and play some UMB