The Astralis Synth Pack has been developed over the last 2 years and is now available for sale. There is a 30 day fully functional trial version. The pack currently contains 2 Synths and a Microtonal Patch creator for creating custom Tuning scales of up to 24 notes in length. The patches can be used on both Astralis Synths as well as all future VST Instrument Releases.
There is a 3rd Astralis Synth in development which uses samples as opposed to Oscillators and will be available free to registered users. There will also be a standalone FX vst for use as a send effect added in the near future.
Download Astralis Full Astralis Info  I've been planning to do this album for a long time, and have finally got around to it. I started out making music in the 80's by writing songs, but since the mid nineties I have focused exclusively on instrumentals (or not been the vocalist). These songs were never recorded beyond 'live demos' to tape deck. Since I've had a studio I have always had in the back of my mind that I should record some of them. More recently I have wanted to explore writing some new songs, and it seemed that the best way to get back into it would be to start with some old ones. It worked out well and so 4 out of the 11 tracks are new...  After finishing Whirlpool I felt the need to explore my root musical avenues to gauge how things were sitting, and so I produced another album of instrumentals. There are 4 new tracks, and the other 3 are from the last couple of years which were always intended for the next AP release. One thing I have always been fascinated by is music which is great for the twilight zone between awake and sleep, and I think I achieve that pretty well in some of these tracks. Yep I'm good at sending people to sleep :) You can hear the title track 'shining' by clicking on the play button above. ....  This album is freely available and can be downloaded from here I recorded this album throughout autumn 2005 after my brother Joe had died, which dramatically changed my life in so many ways. Before this happened I was in limbo and had been educating myself to what was going on in the world, and my anger was growing by the day. The London bombings combined with the G8 summit and Live 8 fiasco was almost the last straw for me. The bombing completetly diverted the media's attention to the G8 and after watching lots of 9/11 stuff it seems too timely to be ignored. The G8 slipped by unnoticed and no real progress was made. I had actually been feeling quite positive about it beforehand believing the propaganda that it would be different this time, and felt we could move closer to a better planet.  When I first heard Cha Cha 2000 I got pretty emotional because here is a track that incorporates so many elements I can relate to, probably more than any other music I've ever heard. Some people think it's hippy idealism, but that is just a get-out clause in the same way as "well theres nothing we can do about it so why worry?" or "What are you doing about it?". It was released on La! Dusseldorf - Viva in 1977 and lyrically it is idealistic but its full of attitude and motivation to strive for a better planet. I really hooked into Klaus Dinger when I realised there was someone who hated the capitalist system as much as I do, a generation before me. On top of that he's still going strong, fighting for something better. I'll probably be writing a lot more about it if I get to Viva :)...  Julian Cope does a much better review of this album than I could ever do :) It's funny because when I first played this album I went straight for Cha Cha 2000 with total excitement, and couldn't believe my ears. All of the soul had been stripped out and it was just weak and disapointing. That influenced the way I felt about the rest of the album, and I didn't play it again for a while. (Though I had bought 3 other KD albums at the same time so I had plenty to keep me occupied... Lost in the Process continues where Nazca Nine left off and it has taken me a long while to finalize and master the initial album “ONE�?. Musically Nazca Nine came about from my interest in Indian Sounds and Instruments and the idea of integrating them with western sounds and styles such as IDM and Dub and what's now become PsyTrance. Nazca Nine were gigging from 97-2000 and produced 5 albums which are no longer available. I am planning to release a second Lost in the Process album in the near future which will contain some remixes of Nazca tracks, as a sort of updated introspective... Subsonic HeadDub began in 1995 in Hull East Yorkshire as an experimental Live Dub venture, as an extension to Dub Trance Experience a regular Dub Event. Initially Astralp was dubbing the tunes which were to become SH, when Jeckyl showed an interest in collaborating in a live situation... You can read the History of SH on the History page, but I will just add here some probably 'rambling type' notes on what SH is all about to me. I first discovered Dub strangely through hearing some of the Ozric Tentacles reggae tunes whilst "mellow" I then felt a growing need to hear more like this and over the next few years began buying Dub and reggae albums like crazy. My personal favourites range from Prince FarI to Radical Dance Faction to Burning Spear to Zion Train et al... But what I realized when making my own tunes is that the aspects I love are repetition and heavy Bass. Strangely I find repetition hard to do for some reason, I don't feel I've ever conquered it in the way I want to. I think the closest I've heard to what I mean is probably Rhythm and Sound. When its played loud there's nothing like it, but it can drive some people round the bend, plus there is always the danger of producing something boring, yet when done well it becomes engaging... |