Artist: Astralasia
Title: Utopia EP
Format: 12" single
Label: Magick Eye Records
Catalogue Number: EYE T5
Year of Release: 1992
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Tracklisting:
A1 To A Better Place
B1 Utopia
B2 Sunblind
It's always nice to know that there exists only a quantifiably small number of certain things, such as nuclear weapons or Tory politicians. It can be even more satisfying if you own one of them. Not in the above cases, admittedly, but in this instance there are only 199 other copies of this 12" single in the whole wide world. This fact alone, I think, makes it worth owning.
The subtext in that last sentence would suggest that it surely ain't worth owning for the music, but that would be a little unfair. There is a huge difference in the quality of music on here compared to the self-titled debut album - a wider variety of sounds generated for example, and clearer production values means you can hear those sounds much better.
On the A-side, it seems clear that not only has new studio equipment been purchased, but someone has also splashed out on the Big Boy's Book of Arabian Sounding Samples, as some call-to-prayer type chanting introduces To A Better Place, and then won't go away. There's some other speech samples about "we must go back..." and then a female voice singing the title in the fashion that you would expect from Astralasia. The delivery of the 'message' is as subtle as the trance-by-numbers backing. You can see why they didn't bother putting this out as a proper single in the end.
The first track on the B-side is much the same king of upbeat number, but instrumental for a change. Bit too much piano for my liking.
The final track is a beatless piece comprising a looped vocal sample about "operating totally blind" ( possibly in space) and some big synth pads. It's OK. Some years ago I used to enjoy doing a beatless DJ set as part of a radio show on this station. I never once used this track.
