Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Award-winning Victoria band releases genre-bending psychedelic jazz album

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Astrocolor has been a mainstay of the Victoria music scene since their first release in 2015. 

They’ve now released six full-length albums and won various awards for their musical prowess in the Canadian music scene. 

They were named instrumental artist of the year in 2022 at the Western Canadian Music Awards for their signature sound, which blends psychedelia, jazz and electronica. 

They’ve been featured on CBC’s Drive and Afterdark, they’ve been one of the Zone @ 91-3’s favourite Victoria bands since their inception and they have played all the largest stages on the west coast. 

On Friday, March 31st, Astrocolor released their sixth album into the world. The new record is called Moonlighting – AstroJazz Vol. 1 and is unmistakably an Astrocolor, cosmic rendition of a genre that has stood the test of time.

Moonlighting – AstroJazz Vol. 1 was produced and mixed by Steve Christensen, a Grammy award-winning producer best known for his iconic collaborations with Khruangbin. 

Khruangbin has helped redefine the way generations of music-lovers listen to instrumental music thanks to Christensen’s vision which has now been applied to Astrocolor’s newest sound. 

The new album is unequivocally spacey and cosmic. Its tracks build throughout the record to bring about a concise and well executed overall sound which will no doubt have listeners’ feet tapping and heads bopping along to the beat. 

It is jazzy in an approachable way. It isn’t pretentious, its well executed and is rife with smooth saxophone, piano and guitar parts blending and letting each other have their moments while the drums and bass ground the sound and give it a hypnotic, medatative feeling.

Close your eyes with headphones on and you’ll see yourself traversing a meteor belt in deep space with strange and foreign planets passing you by. 

The record was engineered at Burning Rainbow Studios right here in Victoria.

Astrocolor is hosting not one but two intimate album release shows in the evening of March 31st at Hermann’s Jazz Club. 

As of this publication, there are little to no tickets left for the live release show, but Moonlighting – AstroJazz Vol. 1 is now streaming on all major platforms. Vinyl and CD copies of the record can be found on Astrocolor’s website. 

Here is Moonlighting – AstroJazz Vol. 1! Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Astrocolor at Hermann’s Jazz Club

  • Where: Hermann’s Jazz Club, 753 View Street 2 floor
  • When: Friday, March 31st, shows at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. (may be sold out)
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Curtis Blandy
curtis@victoriabuzz.com

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