Road to the Sky

 

Road to the Sky

A write up of the collaborative album Road to the Sky by experimental artist Vanessa LeFevre & Astro Al.

This is an all instrumental affair. 

Road to the Sky

An album by Vanessa LeFevre & Astro Al

Vanessa LeFevre: Diddly Bow, the Bass Lamellophone and the Spoke Projector Metallophone

These are instruments that Vanessa made herself or purchased from indie makers. All are hand made and wild.

Astro Al is:

DNA Girl: electric guitar, mandolin, FX

Count Robot: genometer, FX, Aztec death whistle, kazoo, monotron, duotron, duck call

A genometer is an old oscillator made for testing electronics. It can make warped sounds and tones. Bands like the Silver Apples and Hawkwind (in their early days) built their sound around them.

Recorded 7/15/23 on a late Saturday afternoon in Saugus MA. Vanessa has a nice large space in her house which makes a good recording spot.

It’s a rather raw recording. You can hear pedal buttons being pressed. We weren’t aiming for studio perfection.

Copyright 2024 Vanessa LeFevre & Astro Al

All material by Vanessa LeFevre & Astro Al

1. Take the Wheel 5:54 -DNA Girl slinging that guitar! Vanessa made some great tones here too! 

2. The Shimmering Line 4:23 -This one is a more textural piece. A wall of sounds. 

3. Sideways Dance 6:04 - Vanessa making those deep percussion sounds. DNA Girl carving up some guitar

4. Road to the Sky 6:41 - The squealing weirdness at the beginning is the genometer. This one is the title track probably because it’s one of the standout tracks. DNA Girl hits it!

5. Sea Lions’ Frolic 5:22 - Ah the kazoo makes an appearance. Vanessa is unleashing some wild sounds. 

6. Bright Moon 6:16 - A nice spooky interplay of sounds. Vanessa leans into the Diddley Bow on this one making a nice tonal sweep of sounds.

7. Inside the Wheel 7:02 - A good one to end on with the chaos of sounds swallowing your ears. The ending of this track is a great album closer.

I think Vanessa named most of the tracks.

I like to try different stuff with the production style. Believe it or not I started out emulating the mastering style of electronic dance music for this album then shifted things a bit.

Yours in instrumental music,

Count Robot

Second episode of the Dining Zone

 https://open.substack.com/pub/diningzone/p/the-dining-zone-episode-2?r=361p7j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Above is a link to episode 2 of the Dining Zone.

Hope you enjoy!

yours in food,

Count Robot

mp3

 There is an upcoming recording session for our audio project, Amplissima.

We usually record in outdoor spaces (though we have done some recordings in a really acoustically interesting attic space). I am always trying to come up with different things to do during our sessions. One thing that came to mind recently is using an MP3 player to randomly playback severely altered versions of our prior recordings while recording our new works.

 

Hopefully it turns out groovy.

 

Yours in experimentation,

Count Robot

AI slop

Question: What can you do that AI can’t?

Answer: Be really creative instead of regurgitating pr-existing stolen work.

Yours in AI art doesn’t exist,

Count Robot

upcoming live stream

 

This show is free and available on demand the moment the live stream finishes.

You can pause it live as well.

Click here!

LIVESTREAMING EVENT

Neurodivergent Orchestra

– I Like Yummy Things

7/18/2026 – Start Time between 7 pm and 7:30 pm EST

Scheduled for Jul 18, 2026

Start between 7 PM and 7:30 PM East Coast USA Time

PEK - wacky banter, clarinets, saxophones, double reeds, flutes, percussion

John Fugarino - trumpets, flugelhorn, trombone, French horn

Eric Dahlman - trumpet, overtone voice

Kelsey Gallagher - clarinet

Count Robot  - wacky banter, gadgets

DNA Girl  - wacky banter, mandolins, vocals, gadgets

Tim Mungenast - wacky banter, guitar

Scott Samenfeld - bass

Jared Seabrook - drums

Joel Simches - live to 2-track recording, Real-Time Signal Processing

Raffi Batalian - video mix

 

Paul Brennan - camera

Yours in live stream musical maddness,

Count Robot

Green Desert- Tangerine Dream

 

Green Desert- Tangerine Dream

This is one of my top 10 albums of all time.

Tangerine Dream is an electronic focused band that got it's start in the late 60's in Germany. Mostly their songs are instrumental. Some of it wildly experimental. 

Rather than talk a lot about them, I want to make comments on their album Green Desert which was released in the 80s although it was made up of updated unreleased recordings they did in the 1970s. 

The production rings perfect. The keys have a nice tone to them. The drums sound as massive as they sound thick. The guitar is scorching. Edgar Froese does some of his best guitar playing of his entire career on the title track, Green Desert.

The song Green Desert clocks in at almost 20 minutes. It's a killer epic track which just builds so intensely that it feels like it will never end until it explodes into a massive crescendo then slowly and deftly fades down. It's a musical roller coaster ride that I live in whenever I hear it. Kudos to the show Stranger Things for featuring a bit of this song in a great manic scene from the first season. Froese's guitar tone is super matched for this song, futuristic sci-fi psychedelic music. Love every moment. The keys and drums dance madly with each other. 

The drums! My stereo practically explodes when I play this one! So powerfully good. 

By the way, this is a great song to have playing during a yoga practice. Nice synth departure tones.

White Clouds a burst of drumming synth mayhem. It dives right into a trashing drum synth groove. The shortest song on the album. More comments on this track later. 

Astral Voyager is a sequencer dream. Try meditating to this track some time. You'll go far. Across the gulf of space this song pulses. Rising and riding the pulsing synth. What a fading ending. Sublime.

Our audio project, Astro Al, did an album called the Purple Mushroom which is a tribute to this album even though its filled with spoken words and some singing. This Tangerine Dream album is instrumental time. 

Indian Summer is the final song of the album. Ah, how it leaves you filled from the journey yet not wanting it to end. Wistful this song is, like the last burst of a joy that had begun to grow cold, only to warm one last time. The wind is a wall of synths blurring across your speakers and headphones. Layers of sonic sculptures building a scene of beauty is what this song becomes.

If I have a complaint about this album, it's only about the song sequencing.

The track White Clouds which is directly after Green Desert sounds like a condensed version of the sprawling title track, Green Desert. While that in of itself isn't a bad thing, the problem is coming right on the heels of the other track, makes it feel too much like a re-tread.

Many years ago there was a multi-plex theatre in Somerville MA that my friends and I would frequent. It no longer exists. One time when I got there early before the previews started, this album was playing. It was so wonderful to hear this album blazing away on the theatre speakers.

I'm sure that experience was better than most any movie I ever saw at that theatre. I don't know who picked the pre-show music, but thanks!

Yours in music amazement,

Count Robot

Squirrel of Doom

 And lo did the squirrel of doom call forth her supplicant to feast upon the nuts of gloomy chaotic destruction and they found it to be as prophesied, tasty.

Yours in rodent scribing,

Count Robot