This Week On The Philebrity Player: The Asteroid #4!
On one hand, it’s hard to believe that The Asteroid #4 have been around for a decade; on the other, oh, what a long, strange trip it’s been. For the uninitiated: A4 debuted as a kind of My Bloody Valentine tribute band, complete with racks and racks of pedals and a light show, at a time when this city’s rock scene was mostly punctuated with dudes wearing shorts on stage whilst recycling Amphetamine Reptile riffs. Even though on first sight they were fish out of water, they quickly realized they had many shoegazing, dropout brethren here in Philly and before you could say “E-bow,” the Asteroid #4 emerged as the most visible (and ambitious) band of the then-developing Psychedelphia scene. (Exhibit A in all of this, of course, is the now-legendary Sounds of Psychedelphia compilation, released in 1999 on the group’s then in-house label, Lounge Records.) But as the years lurched on, the band’s sound evolved in a distinct ADD stylee: They made an homage to the Elephant 6 movement with Kurt Heasley (of The Lilys) producing and toured with Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Sights, before landing on the shores of the new millennium with a distinct cosmic-country sound, a la Beachwood Sparks or the hairy-era Byrds. Detractors, of course, saw all of this as aimless trend-hopping, but the truth was plain to anyone who bothered to go see the band: The Asteroid #4 were in for the long con, and on a true journey of musical discovery in which, somehow, quite by accident, they actually learned how to write songs and play their instruments very, very well.
For a while, that looked like the end of the band ‚Äî until reports began to emerge that the ‘Stroid was working on a new record with a sound that was decidedly O.G. Psychedelphonic. And so here it is: An Amazing Dream is a return to form that is actually a better form than the one the band started out to begin with. Awash with dreamy guitars and distant vocals, A4 these days find their old selves as confident as ever, and in the comfort of the sonic madness that put them on the map in the first place.
Click here to launch An Amazing Dream by The Asteroid #4 on The Philebrity Player
Note: An Amazing Dream is officially released on August 22 on Rainbow Quartz International. However, you can buy the record as a pre-release download on The Philebrity Player this week for $8. To purchase, simply click through to the “Buy” window on the Player itself.
