Astrosoniq - Big Ideas Dare Imagination (2018)

The "Wizards of Oss" …exploring the ends of the rock universe since 1999 with their first studio album Son of A.P.Lady released in 2000. Their music can be described as stoner rock with a very strong space rock flavor, and is characterized by heavy guitar riffs, funkadelic grooves and lengthy psychedelic instrumental soundscapes mixed with weird samples and spacey electronic sounds.

The band cites classic heavy rock artists such as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Hawkwind, Funkadelic, Thin Lizzy and KISS as their influences; without ever falling back into silly retro twaddle and boring revision exercises. Astrosoniq are always pushing the boundaries of rock, live and on their records. Their lyrics are often inspired by sci-fi, space travel and other fantastic adventures and form an essential part of the musical soundscape. Clips from old B-movies, Wonder Woman episodes and other sources are frequently incorporated with most continuing the themes of fantasy and space, but some discuss the music itself.

Live the band is a unique experience. Their heavy rocking soundscapes will show you all corners of the musical galaxy while making your ears hurt like real rock music should. Their shows are often accompanied by a VJ-show with psychedelic animations, liquid cassette projections and video clips from 50's and 60's sci-fi and adventure movies.

Their first album, Son of A.P. Lady was still very much a stoner rock album, though the band showed a lot more willingness to experiment and incorporate influences from various musical genres than most bands in this genre tend to do. The album ranged from the instant adrenaline rush of “Ego Booster” to the more lengthy heavy droning rocker called “Afterlife Rulers” and a spacey journey called “You Lose”.

Their second album Soundgrenade was released in 2002 and was a further excercise in creating Astrosoniq’s own unique brand of loud rock music. It contained even more psychedelic soundscapes than on the first album (“Aprodite’s Child” and “Daemonology” both over 10 minutes long), and musical influences ranging from the classic rock dinosaurs to heavy metal (“Hit & Run”), 70’s funk (“So Be It”) and even what seems a Nick Cave tribute on “Evil Rules in Showbizzland”.

In 2005 they released the EP Made in Oss on vinyl, accompanied by a gold-labeled and untitled CD – that was later sold separately – for those amongst us who prefer a CD player.
In 2006 they released their third studio album Speeder People taking you on a new adventurous trip from the deepest caverns of doom to the most vague corners of rock, metal, jazz, punk, noise and psychedelia , merging all into a coherent compositions in which the "song" is the centre point.

In 2007 they released a 7" split single with the Liszt, called Astrosuper - Superastro.

Their fourth album entitled Quadrant was released in 2009. On this album, Astrosoniq continued their experimental journey even further. The track “Zero” wass an experiment in stereo music, in collaboration with the band Zeus. Each of the bands played their own version of the same song on one of the two channels, creating a new sort of mashup for the listener, which can be customized by altering the balance between the left and right channels. The track “Bloom” is a real country cracker including a prominent pedal steel guitar, but even this is made to sound logical within Astrosoniq's musical universe.

Their album covers (designed by visual artist Willum Geerts) somehow always contain references to hair. Their EP Made in Oss shows a woman lying on a bed, strangely growing minced meat instead of hair, which seems a reference to their hometown Oss, the capital of the regional meat processing industry.

Due to their drummer’s health problems the band took a hiatus from playing live in 2010. The band reappeared at the 2015 Woolstock festival in their original lineup with added guest Bram van Zuijlen from Radar Men from the Moon on synths. In 2016 they played a packed Green Room at the infamous Roadburn festival with visuals operated by the festival’s artistic director Walter Hoeijmakers. 2017 saw them at the Acherontic Arts Festival in Germany. This yearly gig cycle got abruptly broken by the sudden passing of key member Bidi van Drongelen.

June 2018 their fifth album, Big Ideas Dare Imagination will see the light of day. The album is a personal tribute by key members Ron van Herpen and Marcel van de Vondervoort with help from artists mostly from the Bidi Bookings roster: RJ Gruijthuijzen (the Liszt, Astrosoniq), Rob Martin (RRRags, Bliksem), Fred van Bergen (ZooN, Astrosoniq), Joris Dirks (Moodswing), Otto Kokke (MNHM, Dead Neanderthals), Fred Händle (A.P.Lady), Mark Watson and Peggy Meeussen (Bliksem).

Tracklist:

1. King 07:38
2. The Great Escape 07:37
3. Mindless 04:04
4. KEPPRA! 04:39
5. Vision Factor 07:14
6. Freezen 09:37