“Everybody who meets Suzuki Junzo loves the guy. Everybody who has seen him live drops their jaw on the floor. So when this February he suffered a intracerebral hemorrhage and a subarachnoid hemorrhage everyone was very worried. Junzo is now in a rehabilitation hospital and unable to tour or record music. Proceeds from this compilation will all go towards helping him financially but we want this to do more than that. This album is also one giant get well card, a huge sign of love from the world to Junzo. We love you Junzo and we know you got this but we’re all there cheering for you every step of the way.”
“One Road To Quartzsite”, the forthcoming documentary film featuring some Ashtray Navigations tunes on the soundtrack, wins first prize at Big Sky documentary festival. Congratulations to Sophie Hardeman, Ryan Maxey and Josh Polon.
New CD only album released by the legendary and relaunched Cheeses International label. No digital (no downloads or streaming), no vinyl(s) and definitely no cassettes! So 90s its light years ahead of the game. A largely rockless voyage into electroacoustic juxtapositions, feeled recordings and trippy noises, that kind of thing. Edition of 300 in full colour digipak.
tracklist:
At Throat Of Night
When God Gave Out Brains Et Cetera
Medicine Software
I Became Lawn Ornament
Cabin Interior
With Candarel Spoonful Over The Mountain Rainbow
Leeds England Jan-Feb 2021
bandcamp or £10 plus postage (£1 UK, £4.50 europe, £5.50 rest), paypal to usual ashtraynavigations@hotmail.com
Watch this space. Coming soon. A “real” (glassmastered) disc on the legendary and relaunched Cheeses International label. A largely rockless voyage into electroacoustic juxtapositions, feeled recordings and trippy noises, that kind of thing. Think this one is a beaut (as is the forthcoming “Before You Play This” LP on X-Ray Recordings…yeah yeah it’s been delayed, that’s “vinyls” for ya…it will be with us all soon). Over and out.
We relaunch our x-ray vinyl cult with Yorkshire-kosmische legends Ashtray Navigations! Beautiful collectible vinyl lust objects, the x-ray records reveal an image when held up to the light. Limited edition.
“We were always too rock for the art crowd and too artsy for the rock & roll crowd,” Phil Todd – the musician behind Yorkshire kosmische institution Ashtray Navigations for the past 30 years – explained to The Quietus in a recent career-examining feature. “I’ve always been a big fan of playfulness. I take great pleasure in the unexpected and illogical aspects of recording music.”
The music of ‘Ash Nav’, as the project is known to its devoted admirers, has traversed the fields of drone, noise, krautrock, lo-fi, psychedelia and ambient across 180 or so releases since 1994. But as Phil indicates, one of the determining characteristics of this project is a sharply-honed sense of playfulness.
These sonic explorations might be dedicated to exploring the weirdest of unnamed feelings and perverse half-thoughts scuttling around the back of our minds, but it is never not joyful. And Ash Nav’s new LP, Before You Play This, might well be the most joyful of the lot.
Before You Play This is such an unashamedly pleasure-embracing album that it’s hard not to think of it as a kind of psychedelic pop music. Its textures are bright and shiny, its structures – for a band sometimes mistakenly thought of as creating formless, abstract splurges of sound – are concise, catchy, and, on tracks like The Case at least, almost danceable.
Sure, it still feels like your eyeballs are melting and your brain is fizzing, but in a happy way?
Thanks to 2020’s universally acclaimed Greatest Imaginary Hits retrospective, compiled by long-time celebrity fans including Henry Rollins, a new generation of music fans are discovering Ashtray Navigations for the very first time. Before You Play This proves that Ash Nav continues to confound, surprise, and innovate – that this is modern, forward-looking music, forever pointing out possible new futures for sound.
Praise for Ashtray Navigations
“This particular brand of home brew lysergia falls in and out of underground fashion, but it’s to Todd’s credit that he doesn’t seem to give a shit, carrying on as he would regardless. That’s what legends are made of, kid… if the hall of fame doesn’t give my dude a lifetime achievement award soon, the whole of Greatest Imaginary Hits might be reason enough to start storming the gates and demanding action.” – The Quietus
“AN remain a puzzlingly underrated but integral part of the UK underground scene.” – The Wire
“A symbiotic swirl of grey and halogen, with the unmistakable tones of cheap keyboards and practice amps reworked into the implements of astral lift-off.” – ATTN:Magazine
“Phil Todd boils Kosmiche in a manner that suggests he’s got a direct line to the cosmic source, foaming and frothing his way through synth nodes hard pressed to contain the oddly pulsing gamma waves that radiate from within.” – Raven Sings The Blues
“Raw, noisy, often ecstatic, transporting, textural, and most of all, free.” – Petriblog
“Truly far out stuff that’ll make you feel like you’re taking a trip to another universe and beyond… For a totally tripped out experience, you won’t do much better than this. Provocative. Wild. And amazing. Recommended. Top pick.” – Babysue
“Just in case you’ve lived in a cave without Wi-Fi for twenty years: Ashtray Navigations is the long-running ‘band’ name of the singular Phil Todd, a living goddamned treasure whose music from the early 90s all the way until today, a hundreds-strong catalogue that shows no sign of slowing down or running on empty, is worth as much of your time as you can spare.” – Vital Weekly
Bandcamp Friday rolls around yet again and in the absence of any new music to lay upon ye (though there will be soon, exciting announcement on its way, soon, promise…) we have the next best thing. Or maybe a better thing. Bargains! Some old muck has been halved in price. Or sometimes more than halved. Almost thirded!
In short, all of the following titles are temporarily (i.e. until the weekend) reduced to one english pound and fifty english pennies. That’s £1.50. So stock up virtually while virtual stocks last:
Those Are Pearls That Were His Eyes, 1995-1997 Hands Under Water Reaching For Nothing, Fuzzbottle Phenomena, Flute Falling (Vertically), Sea II, Greatest Imaginary Band, Skewered By Clouds, Snakestrings/Hollywood Taught You How To Kiss, Who’s Been Rocking My Dreamboat?, Running On Autokinetic, The Cream Wheel , Johnny Fuckoff Minotaur (Easter Exit 2), Caeduceus & Black Sal, The Beak Stuck Out Of The Snow, Cinderella Stamps, Deadicated to the Sensory Armada, Ten Layer Terror, Sky Whine, Abomination Rock, Spray, Srpls Provncl Hrbs, Cloud Come Cadaver, Blues Power Cake, Monocycle Americain, The Night Time Is The Right Time, Sweet Iron Feet, Yesterday’s Teeth Cast in Gold, “Progressive Physical Relaxation” – Live At Helderberg House Nov 2nd 2009, Aero Infinite, Fluctuants
We’ve got a new special subscribers only release coming up for Bandcamp Friday, titled Superiorfeelings No. 2, you can get that by signing up for our subscription service: ashtraynavigations.bandcamp.com/subscribe
Also coming up is a new LP on Blue Tapes, and T-shirts, more information soon!
The 2nd Ashtray radio show will be streaming live this Thursday at 4pm CET (that’s 3pm UK time, 10am EST, 11pm in Japan, Midnight on Friday in Australia and 7am PDT, for all you early risers) www.listen.camp Music from Lamont Dozier, Embryo, Rose Royce, Sonny and Linda Sharrock, Wizzard and many more! Phil and Mel will be doing some talking in this one!
It can be listened to again afterwards at CAMPs Mixcloud. Our show from last month is still up there:
ashtraynavigations 