The Purple Mushroom

Today’s subject, The Purple Mushroom which is an Astro Al cd of course…

This cd came about in a strange alignment.

For a while we had been mulling doing a 70’s style epic recording, a full length forty plus minute recording comprised of only four songs. Well ok two of them are spoken word pieces as it turned out but this our version of those types of albums by bands like Yes, Van Der Graf Generator, and so on.

Whilst hiking one day DNA Girl spotted an odd looking gigantic mushroom. She took a picture of it and somehow the lighting made the mushroom look… purple. So DNA Girl said that it should be the cd cover and that made sense for the whole 70’s vibe we wanted and it was just too easy to call the collection of tracks The Purple Mushroom.

Really when it comes down to it, this cd to me is a tribute to one of my favorite Tangerine Dream albums, Green Desert. That album has only four tracks. The massive sprawling title track and three shorter ones.

Here’s a shakedown of The Purple Mushroom track by track

1.    Ancient Astronauts: The shortest track on the cd. Brian Fowler sent us some rip roaring space rock music and DNA Girl and I filled it out. A lot of fun to rock out in the stars.

2.    Frozen Mass: The longest track on the cd. A lot of the music and sounds came from Wisteriax and Mike Langlie of Twink. They really carried this story of sci-fi Tell Tale Frankenstein into other realms.

3.    Interspace: A meditative song built around the premise of reaching beyond yourself. Always a good idea.

4.    Ripples in the Puddle: A lot of the music here was by Brian Fowler and his gang of henchmen. The words were based on an old sci-fi story I never finished that looked at two characters on opposing sides of a war. When recording it DNA Girl was given narration duties for one side and myself the other.

Just wanted to thank Wisteriax, Brian Fowler and his gang, and Mike Langlie for all of their help making this musical mountain happen! You rock the spaceways.

Here’s the video for Ancient Astronauts.

-From the frozen wastes,

Count Robot