I have to admit, I’ve screwed this one all up. What I should have done that first drunken night when I was placing my order was go back to the original recommendation in the comments of my Astrosoniq, Quadrant, review and started working my way back from 2006’s Speeder People. At least that way, my understanding of the band’s progression would make some temporal sense. As it is, I’ve started with the latest album, then heard the second, then the first, and now the third — 2005’s Made in Oss.

The learning process seems endless, though, because even though by now I’ve interviewed drummer Marcel Van de Vondervoort about the growth over the band over the course of their 12 years together, I’m still just now finding out that Made in Oss, which has a total five tracks, isn’t an EP at all as I first thought when I bought it and a requisite couple other goodies off Amazon, but instead a 46-minute full-length album. Boy, is my face dumb.

Not only that, but it’s just about the most experimental release I’ve heard from Astrosoniq yet. Some familiar elements are there: the samples (the Wonder Woman ones spread over the last couple tracks are second in my heart only to “Hey, wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?” from Dumb and Dumber, which starts “Soul Searcher”), the riffy rock, the gruff, post-Garcia vocals. But the bluesy guitar work that makes up most of 11-minute closer “The Secret of the Magic Tiara” — also listed on the album as “The Magic of the Secret Tiara” — was a complete surprise, and an overwhelmingly pleasant one.

And as it was the final track, it was also nowhere near the first part of Made in Oss to catch me off guard. Right from the start of “Black Chasm,” Astrosoniq‘s goal seemed to be to defy the formula they’d established on their previous two albums, 2002’s Soundgrenade and 2000’s Son of A.P. Lady. It’s a fascinating turn, because now that I’ve heard this, I’d say Quadrant — discovering the stylistic origins of which has been the impetus for this whole exploration — has more in common with the first two records than it does with Made in Oss.

What does this mean? Well, it means I’m all the more nerdily excited about getting my grubby mitts on 2006’s Speeder People, for one thing. It also means that, as we round out this Recommended Buried Treasure series in the next and final installment, there are still questions unanswered about the direction Astrosoniq have taken over the course of their career! That’s fucking awesome. Perhaps geeky glee isn’t the easiest of emotions to carry across in type (though blogging seems to have been built specifically for that purpose, so maybe it’s just me), but I couldn’t be more stoked to dig into Speeder People and finally get to the root of why it was the album recommended in the first place.

To be concluded…

Tags: Astrosoniq, Oss, Suburban Records, The Netherlands

This entry was posted on Friday, January 21st, 2011 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Buried Treasure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.