quête:d star

The Bay Area Boogie Boss E. LIVE is back with his patented "Boogie Shimmer" on the A-side remix. The B-side features the original with a little spacey Italo slap vibe. Newcomer GILLIES on the vocals this is a perfect blend of atmosphere meets pheromones. Doubles recommended.

Jesus and Mary Chain, Shop Assistants, Black Tambourine, Sarah Records, My Bloody Valentine. Star Party began in March 2020 as a Seattle living room project between Carolyn Brennan and Ian Corrigan (Gen Pop, Vexx) - both sharing a love of high energy rock n roll music. The idea to start a band percolated during trips to the high deserts of eastern Washington to pick sage and see the sun as a brief reprieve from the misty and grey Pacific Northwestern Spring. A few months later, Star Party released Demo 2020 on Feel It Records, featuring two originals and covers of The Shop Assistants' "Something to Do" and the classic "All I Really Wanna Do" (in the vein of Cher's version). Over the course of 2021, Star Party wrote and recorded their debut LP, Meadow Flower, wherever and whenever they could. Employing like-minded Feel It label mate Caufield Schnug of Sweeping Promises (who also moonlights as one part of Melody Men Mastering) to mix and master the album, Meadow Flower follows a direct line from where Demo 2020 left off. Brennan's soft and clearly American vocals float over waves of feedback and drum machine racket like a delicate mist sitting just above a mountain lake. Melodies bob and weave inside an omnipresent static that fills in every nook and cranny of the recording. Drawing from a quiver of influences such as Black Tambourine, Confuse (JP), The Count Five, and of course The Shop Assistants (RIP Alex Taylor), Star Party's debut album seamlessly meshes together noise, melody, and harmony

In 2002 well-known for his albums by the progressive rock project Ayreon, Star One “Space Metal” is an exciting project from one of rock's great visionaries, Arjen Lucassen. With its stellar musicianship, visionary production and a simple yet far-reaching concept, Star One “Space Metal” shines bright as a giant sun in the galaxy of rock. “Space Metal” isn't a continuous story or a rock opera like the Ayreon albums. Yet it is still very much a concept album and a journey through Arjen's mind and memory. He takes the listener on a trip where they relive those great science fiction space films that made such an impact on him. Without a doubt Arjen Lucassen set a trend with his Ayreon albums. Especially after the highly successful release of “Into the Electric Castle” many musicians and producers have followed in his footsteps and new rock operas with multiple singers are surfacing all over the world. To ensure to keep the involved voices diverse he used very different sounding singers appearing in the same songs -- different singers for different moods. Dan Swano (ex-Edge of Sanity, Nightingale) sings the low parts, Russell Allen (Symphony X and more) sings the powerful rough parts, Damian Wilson (ex-Threshold, Headspace) sings the high clear parts, and to top it off, Floor Jansen (Nightwish) sings the really high choruses. Robert Soeterboek (Ayreon) sang the backing vocals with his huge smoky voice. Of course Ed Warby played the powerful drums, and Erik Norlander once again added his huge analog synth leads. Arjen also managed to get Jens Johansson (Yngwie Malmsteen, Dio, Stratovarius) who played some incredibly fast synth leads as well. Arjen even succeeded in getting Hawkwind's Dave Brock to make a guest vocal appearance, something no one has ever managed to do before. “Space Metal (Re-issue 2022)” is available as: Ltd. 2CD Digipak, Gatefold 2LP+2CD & LP-Booklet and Digital album (2CD).

“Revel in Time”, the third album from ARJEN ANTHONY LUCASSEN'S STAR ONE, is as much of a reaction as it is a contrast to Arjen Lucassen’s previous album, “Transitus” from Ayreon. While “Transitus” is a cinematic experience that you may almost call a musical, “Revel in Time” is a heavy album that is very riff driven and there is more focus on virtuoso musicianship. Similar to its predecessors, “Revel In Time” works as a concept album. All tracks are inspired by different movies that deal with some kind of manipulation of time. There is one thing this time around that is quite different compared to the earlier STAR ONE albums: The first two had the same cast of four singers: Floor Jansen, Russell Allen, Damian Wilson and Dan Swano. However, this time Arjen decided to generally have mainly one singer per track, and a different for almost each track. This shows especially on CD 2, the “Same Songs, Different Singers”-CD as Arjen likes to call it. The guide vocals that were recorded (for the other singers) were way too good to just be guide vocals. Thus, Arjen decided to release a second version of the songs with the guide vocals on them as CD2. At some point he started spontaneously inviting other singers to sing some of these tracks, because he was curious how the songs would sound with their voices. Ultimately CD2 ended up with no less than 9 different singers, all equally as good as the ones on CD1. A total of about 30 different musicians contributed to the new album, not all of them being singers though. The core of STAR ONE remains Ed Warby’s powerful drums as well as Arjen’s guitar and bass work that hold it all together and give it that typical STAR ONE sound. The icing on the cake is the front cover art that was created by Arjen’s trusted favorite artist Jef Bertels.

The STAR CREATURE vet returns for Part 1 of his 2022 Chicago/Cali/Minn/Moon combo venture this time around bringing MR. ZACKEY FORCE FUNK on vocals. This one spins round like the rings of Saturn. Intimate dancefloor funk. No matter how hard you throw it, it still comes back around.

A definitive STAR CREATURE sound LP, this one hits all corners - Super classy, electronic proto-jazz funk. Philly's very own M. HOOK has some serious chops, most notably the bass riffs throughout. Don't sleep on this.

Brooklyn-based musician and producer Varsity Star makes his Small Pond Records debut with ‘More Than Anything’, a mini-album of deeply moving and emotive electronic music.

Varsity Star is an electronic musician and upright bassist who grew up in Boston and spent time playing with various bands as a multi-genre sideman. After deciding to go it alone and produce music on a synth and Ableton, he had a spell living in Berlin. Now back in Brooklyn, he has become a prolific artist who, in just a couple of years, has put out various singles, remixes and LPs. As a programmer by day, he has put together high spec live shows involving 3D printers, soldering together LEDs and writing his own programs that read Ableton and output light patterns, he is a truly creative mind.

There is a soft and warm late-night melodic glow to the beautiful opening ambiance of 'Christmas Lights' which then makes way for the prickly live drums of 'Mixtape.' Littered with off-grid hits and detuned synth sounds, it's a modern and electronic take on jazz that is deeply absorbing. 'Bedroom' is a gorgeous affair that floats on airy pads and scuffed up, organic drum sounds while the most innocent of melodies play out.

The original soundtrack from director George Cukor’s Musical Une étoile est née (A Star Is Born) (1954)

Debut 7″ Double Sider from new Italian Hybrid Nu Jazz Band LEONES. The A Side takes us on a mid tempo jazz romp around the coastal frequencies mild disco vibes. Is there such a thing as Balaeric Detroit? While the A Side is for the beach sand dusted dance floor, the B Side makes for a perfect soundtrack for late night coast highway cruises. Going to or heading home from the waves is up to you but this full moon vibes cut will get you more than there. From TIM ZAWADA’s STAR CREATURE label.

Smooth & breezy London post-jazz-funk pre-street soul has a layover in Ibiza before heading home just outside Naples. The result is this balearic/bacolearica tribute to MODULA’s homeland of Bacoli. 2 mellow groovers perfect for the patio, rooftop or whatever your preferred lounge area is.

While meditating on the concept of our next album, we listened to the soundtracks of our favorite movies and dreamed of composing our music for the films. What could the film be like, what would be the story, what would be the idea? What would we like to say this time? 
 And one day such work appeared and suddenly for us, it was not a movie. The book “Star Corsair” by Ukrainian science fiction writer, philosopher, and dissident Oles’ Berdnyk emerged from our distant memories. We even remembered the original cover of the old edition of 1971, a copy of which was immediately found, as if sanctifying our idea and adding a touch of eternity to the process. We decided to read the book again and right after that make our soundtrack to it. 
 

 
 We began to dive. And it immediately became clear that in the case of Berdnyk it is impossible only to read his works without reading about his life. Therefore, the reading of “Star Corsair” and its sequel “Kamerton Dazhboga” turned into an in-depth study of a unique phenomenon in the Ukrainian spiritual, art, and political space – Oles’ Berdnyk.
 
 From the first pages, the book resonated as much as possible with our ideas about true freedom and personal development. An incredible concentration of powerful ideas, subtly set on multilevel spirals of the modeled future intersected with the myth-created past, in projections of bright explosions and degradations of societies and civilizations, in the unconditional possibility of impossible revolutions and eternal deep struggle with systems, in the fire and explosions of liberation ignited by the freethinkers. 
 
 “Star Corsair” naturally intersected with our feelings and understanding of the interdependence of personal development and inner freedom, with the vision of the world around us and the direct action. It naturally complemented our vision of how, through the inner realization, we can contribute to the implementation of freedom, and then live it in our own lives.
 
 And so, this album became not only music for the novel, but also our reflection of the work, observation of our own transformation in the process, and what new ideas and vectors we will formulate for ourselves and offer to those who want to listen to the album.