Never After
The after party
for the after party
for the after life party
is where I want to go
But I can never go
I don't deserve to go
I failed my family and friends alike
I'm way past the third strike
They won't let me go
They won't let me in
I am a sin
I am the din
from which nothing can begin
Yours in moribund words,
Count Robot
You can now hear the Voice of Space.
It's the latest album by Tim Mungenast & Astro Al.
Yes this is another write up about one of our albums.
Here we are, track by track.
I - this is to denote chapter/side one of the material
1. The Conversation 4:35
The album opens with the spritely instrumental, The Conversation. Three instruments try to talk to each other. Or you could say, an electric guitar, a mandolin, and a Genometer walk into a bar...
It builds and builds then devolves. This one wasn't altered too much from the original jam. Just smoothed and trimmed a bit.
Tim & DNA Girl were really in synch here, hence the title.
2. Thank You, Sun! 10:27
Thank You, Sun. This is a lengthy track. Three disconnected stories are narrated. DNA Girl rails about the current state of national affairs, Tim recounts a
a friendly communique from our nearest solar mass, Count Robot blabs about something. The lines about consuming art are a parody of a ridiculous interview I read that someone had with an over inflated actress who complained about not watching the majority of movies she was in because they weren't her type of art. Real art consumes you, not the other way around.
3. Mia And The Giant Water-Klong 3:03
A guest appearance by our dearly departed black cat Mia. Tim drops in some field recordings of rain water running down a drain. This one is a wild blaze of sound.
Sound is fun to experiment with. Lots of sounds from radio tunings as well. All of it filtered through a wall of varying effects. The thinking here is that the track is a good
break before you dive into the second half of the album.
II -We're now on side two/chapter two
4. The Cheese Witch/Duelling Cheeses 6:59
DNA Girl visits the Cheese Witch. Cheese can be love or strangeness. Floating cheese! This track really needed a spoken word bit. There was a lot of open space in
it that a talking bit really could fill. A bit of a tribute to the Who in the story. I used the Genometer here and there on this track. So you're probably wondering,
Hey, what is a Genometer? It's an old oscillating device designed to send test signals to various machines. I find if you mess with it enough and put the right effects
on it, you can make some darn spacey weird sounds. Hawkwind probably used something like it back in the day.
5. The Voice of Space 15:08
Ah, here we are. The end of the album, the title track, the longest epic song on the album. Is this our best track? Who knows, but it is my most liked track on this
album. There is a fifteen minute jam from 2023 which makes the bedrock of the track. While mixing the album, I found an 11 minute jam from 2019 that I thought
would fill out the gaps in the 2023 recording. So they were combined together. Then we threw in a pile of transistor radio recordings. I purposefully left the sounds of
Tim laughing during the jam in, because they were such a joyous sound and I think it helped add to the texture. DNA Girl's woodrow playing is from 2019.
Tim has some tasty serpent guitar playing around the end. Tim gave me some field recordings of birds and cars that slotted in well.
I don't know how many times I've heard this track, and damn, I am not bored with it in the least. I dig it because there's so many sounds and layers.
Who played what:
Tim Mungenast: Danelectro 1457 electric guitar, voice, Zoom Player 2100 multi-effects unit, Amzel Electronics Cheshire Cat distortion,
Fuzzhugger Algal Bloom Fuzz, Convulso-Suggesto Homeo-Pharge in the Key of Landru, field recordings, transistor radio, the Spring Thing,
Blasphemodule
Astro Al is:
DNA Girl: Octave mandolin, metal tongue drum, FX, voice, percussion, transistor tomfoolery, cow bell, woodrow
Count Robot: Bass, FX, Genometer, voice, Jamit, transistor radio
I played bass a lot on this album. It was fun.
The jamit toy is a toy sampler. It was given to me by local legend Bill T Miller. Thanks Bill.
Guest vocals by Mia the Cat on Mia and The Giant Water-Klong
Copyright 2025 Tim Mungenast & Astro Al
Compiled and constructed from recordings done in 2025, 2023, 2021, & 2019 in Ballston Spa, NY, Weirdfield, MA, & a rail trail tunnel in Stoneham, MA.
The bulk of these recordings were made from a session done on the rainy night of 10/7/23 following the rainy afternoon recording sessions for the Hemlock Echoes album by our band Amplissima who also put out an album this year. That album, Hemlock Echoes was culled from the rainy afternoon recording.
Tim had suggested to DNA Girl and I that we should do some jamming when we got back to our house. I was exhausted from the Amplissima recording session and damp as damp the word damp being spoken in the rain in the English countryside. I thought the jam wasn't going to be much of anything, however once we started to play I could feel a new excitement. I think my playing the bass and stumbling around the room helped.
Those few jams we did that night were enough to base the album around. I had to supplement it with some prior recordings we did and some new stuff but those jams we did that night were the bedrock that built an album I am rather pleased with.
It is a true bliss making this music with the talented goat being, Tim Mungenast. Thanks Tim.
Yours in album blabbing,
Count Robot
A hypothetical conversation that hasn't happened yet but someday will.
Some random fool: "Hey why don't you use AI to write a novel?"
Me: "Hey, why don't you punch yourself in the face?"
I could never use AI to work on a novel. Why? There are many reasons.
One very important reason to me, is that a novel is a mystery in my own head. I am trying to solve the problem of writing what is in my head, getting it written out and figuring out what I am trying to say.
Why use something artificial to try to figure out myself?
If I can't solve my own mysteries, what right do I have to share them with anyone else?
Yours in AI should do my laundry,
Count Robot
I recently re-watched the episode of Star Trek where they went to a planet taken over by Nazis caused by interference from a Federation historian.
It reminds me too much of things happening now. People who watch Star Trek may not have seen the lessons that were written into it no matter how many times they supposedly watched it.
A society based on hate is a society based on failure.
Nazis are losers because they believe in hate.
Don't be a loser.
Yours in anti-fascism,
Count Robot
Five By Five From Four is an EP by the legendary Boston band, the Gypsy Moths.
And I LOVE it!
Here's a quick write up about it.
1. And You Know I Do -So bouncy and perfectly 1960s whenever. Wistfully happy. Reminds me of some of the best Monkees songs.
2. Before The Lights Went Out -Reminiscing about the past is a great power of music. Really melancholy lyrics but in a true way not some teen goth way, releasing the sadness of people who have passed but in a way that helps you share out and wear out the pain.
3. Cover For Me -Fun and poppy. A nice upbeat swing after the previous track. Go home with my xylophone alone. fun lyrics!
4. Fold Up The Air - My favorite song of the EP. Freaking beautiful. Psych pop in the best way possible. This song gets stuck in my head all the time and I never mind it living there. That guitar and piano! They sound glorious. The whole song is lush and captured perfectly.
5.Tell Me She's Alright -A fun lost love story. The ending of the story in the song sneaks up on you. It's very clever. The ending of the music catches me off guard too. I really dig how it messes with me in the right way.
If you love rock and roll, this is the EP for you.
Best EP of 2025? Yes it is.
Yours in the love of music,
Count Robot
Saturday night we did this show on youtube which you can check out above.
Here are some behind the scene photos as well.
This first one is our toy piano on the right and to the left the Evil Clown HQ toy piano. Note on the lower left Tim Mungenast's mighty Roland Echo unit. The thing sounds incredible.
Love and video,
Count Robot
