Riot of Fear
An album by Astro Al
This is a write up about the just released album Riot of Fear by Astro Al.
Below each track by track description is the main fear theme that the track is at least somewhat about.
Riot of Fear was assembled from multiple recordings done over a few years. The theme of fear drew all these bits and pieces together.
Riot Of Fear
Astro Al is:
DNA Girl: vocals, voice, octave mandolin, mandolin, synth, guitar, acoustic guitar, field recordings
Count Robot: voice, chimes, bell, Weird Sound Generator, FX, synth, field recordings, samples, monotron
Recorded in Weirdfield MA, a hotel balcony in Portland Maine, a coffee shop in Lynn MA, and at a graveyard in MA
Yeah sometimes we record in graveyards. It’s a good spooky vibe.
I
1. Limited Edition Death 6:57 -Do you like to collect things? Who doesn’t? There’s one thing that’s limited edition alright.
It’s your death. Sure we all get one, but each one is unique. If you don’t believe me, ask someone who died. A very synth driven track. DNA Girl and I were both
jamming out on synths in this one.
Some of the voice stuff was recorded in Portland Maine. Lots of heavily FX altered spoken stuff on this track. We hadn’t done a lot of synth focused pieces
in awhile so I was glad to get this in.
Fear of Death and Fear of Commercialism
2. I See Your Eyes In Every Port 3:10 -There’s a long story behind this track. DNA Girl wrote the majority of this tune
to accompany a short story she wrote about a ghost reuniting with his lost love. This was supposed to be on a collab album
with Harts Horn that has yet to get off the ground. We’re hoping that someday it will and Joe from Harts Horn will sing that version of this song. This version was
originally meant as a guide post for Joe, but we held onto because we liked it and since the collab is on hold, we figured why not put this one out.
For now here’s DNA Girls fine singing. The background is heavily manipulated recordings of seagulls and the ocean. If you’re reading this Joe, when you get the
time, we’d dig getting back to the collab album! Having a more traditional song here helps shake things up early.
Harts Horn is the first band we did a collab album with, which is Pet Noizes.
Fear of infidelity
3. Riot Of Fear 8:15 - Fear is what we fear. Inspired by a line from a movie poster. There’s a gloriously ridiculous Danish monster movie called
Reptilicus. In the movie trailer there is the line “Riot of Fear”. Sounded like a good name for a track to me. Then the rest of the story fell into place.
Take your place, the riot of fear is about to start, it always does. Fear is what we long to fear. Telephones are full of evil spirits. Electricity
leaks out of the sockets in your house. Fear is what we always hear. The message is clear. We are the fear. Riot of fear.
I hadn’t really noticed or thought much about the tagline on the poster until one day my friend Brandon pointed it out to me. Thank you Brandon!
That title really birthed this whole album.
Fear of embarrassment
Fear of fear.
II - Like the idea of feeling like there are two chapters to this recording, as if you have to flip it over.
4. Surfin’ On Poe’s Stash 3:14 -This was born out of a recorded chat on a hotel deck in Portland Maine which inspired the entirety of this track.
DNA Girl and I blabbing on a cold Maine winter night outside as we watched the goings on in that part of the world.
Life is ridiculous. So is this track. A fluff of stuff. There’s always stuff. Perceiving what you hear is your perception. Someday everything will be gone.
We recorded most of the music for this one in Weirdfield.
Fear of loss
5. Great Again Again 6:13 - The opening spoken word part of this track was improvised in front of a live audience at an open mic night in Lynn a few years ago.
I looped it in again at the end with FX on it. Again and again, aren’t we great already? Answer: No we aren’t. Far from it. We’re less and lesser than great every day.
The other spoken word part was recorded in the home studio in Weirdfield. All the music for this one was recorded in Weirdfield.
I really like DNA Girl’s dreamy string playing on this one.
Fear of fascism
6. Becoming The Monster 4:47 -This was mostly recorded at night in a graveyard. The spoken word bit by DNA Girl was added later.
This piece pairs well with the one before it. Deb’s got some playful mandolin strumming on this one. Harkening back to the prior track, the spoken word part
is repeated again with FX drenched over it. I played monotron and duotron on this one. They are handheld synths.
Sometimes monsters aren’t born, they need to be nurtured into that role. Look into the eye of the crow. What Byzantine secrets does it know?
Fear of the Other
7. Lick My Blasphemy 6:59 -Based on a very true story. I saw a billboard for a lobster nativity scene and that
got me thinking about this whole crazy thing. I don’t get down on religion, but I do think having a lobster nativity scene is… a little cracked.
Did anyone really go see this thing? “Hey kids, let’s go look at the birth of our lobster lord then let’s go eat some lobster rolls!”
I suppose if we decided to do another winter holiday album this could have gone on it, but I don’t foresee us doing that again. All the music for this one was recorded in Weirdfield.
Driving around Boston one long December night I saw three billboards advertising a lobster nativity scene. Think about that for a bit. So does that mean there's a
crustacean christ?
Fear of offense
Another thing tying this album together is there’s lots of mando and the two tracks DNA Girl does the main vocal/spoken part both heavily rely on the mandolin.
Written, created, produced, and mastered by Astro Al from recordings made over many years.
Copyright Astro Al 2026
Is Astro Al a band or a duo or an audio project. You decide if you want, and it doesn’t matter if you decide, because we haven’t.
Total: 38:15. I like trying to keep album as close to 40 minutes as possible.
Yours in album number 75,
Count Robot
