Title: Monster Mittens
Format: 7" Single
Label: Dirty Knobby
Catalogue Number: DK-004
Year of Release: 2008
Ltd Edition of 500
Tracklisting
A Monster Mittens
B Flaming Ramoon
From the Dirty Knobby website:
"Astral Social Club Monster Mittens 7” - New single by Neil Campbell’s ever-evolving solo project, Astral Social Club. Neil (A Band, Vibracathedral Orchestra) with assistance from Karl Bauer (Axolotl) unleashes two electronic psychedelic noise jams with distorted loops, cascading feedback, and the sound of hypnotic drones recorded in space. 500 pressed."
You can also hear all 4:16 of Monster Mittens on the record label's site: http://www.dirtyknobby.com/records.htm
Of the two tracks, I prefer the more laid-back B-side, which bears a passing resemblance to Ramoon Ramoon from the Plug Music Ramoon album. Its hazy-summer drone gets overtaken as the track progresses, although the extraneous noise never totally engulfs it. The track ends suddenly as if the record player was stopped for you - and I'm a sucker for those kind of touches.
Monster Mittens I enjoyed, but more in a pure-noise way. It's quite overwhelming as there's a lot going on: cut-up vocal loops and shouts; distorted synth swoops; a constant hammering drum pulse. It lacks much of a sense of progression, but gets noisier towards the ends where the synth bleeps and whoops take over before an abrupt cut off.
