The Astronomical Miracle: Records & Love–Album Review
The Astronomical Miracle: Records & Love–Album Review
Records & Love is the latest release (Feb. 2021) from The Astronomical Miracle, a young bedroom rock solo artist named Corey Light. Records & Love is the third release from The Astronomical Miracle since his debut What is Psychedelic Bubblegum Rock? dropped in June 2020. As with all the releases from The Astronomical Miracle, the songs are multi-layered, experimental creations with an average length of between 01:00 and 01:30 minutes, with four tracks that are 00:16 and 00:56 seconds in length. Light writes, arranges, composes, and produces all the tracks on all four of the releases by The Astronomical Miracle.
What is Psychedelic Bubblegum Space Rock? was the first release from Corey and is the foundation to the sound and substance of The Astronomical Miracle. The sound is at once intriguing and somewhat disorienting, two elements I consider to be bedrocks of psychedelic music. Layers of sound, synth electronic, backward masking, with the occasional acoustic guitar riff in the background. Brief muted vocals, frequently with heavy reverb and backward masking, are woven through the songs with a common thread of love and yearning, and an occasional bit of social commentary.
Records & Love captures the Astronomical Miracle sound that began when the first effort was created and polished in his makeshift bedroom studio. You can hear the influences of psychedelic greats like Syd Barrett and pre-jazz fusion Soft Machine. Corey agrees with these, and adds 60’s psychedelic and garage rock. I would add Aphex Twin, Electric Sun and Light’s fellow New Hampshirite, and Tapestack mate The Beau Reve.
Records & Love is fifteen songs, four less than a minute and an average length of 01:30. (Kind of makes punk 03:00 songs seem like rock opuses.) The first four songs are less than a minute; ten songs have lyrics. Most of the songs segue without breaks. Lyrics on most cuts are included as a single verse, such as the complete lyrics for “Fun Hates Time” (01:38): “Fun hates times tell the great time I felt love work on down. Can’t face the sound of the walls. You haven’t written the words and I might not know at all – I’ll see her another time.” According to Corey, the brevity of the songs is due to his writing style that is stream of consciousness while dividing the songs titled both by numbers and words. As he creates, he has a flow tied to a specific message that courses through the composition.
The sound is at once intriguing and somewhat disorienting, two elements I consider to be bedrocks of psychedelic music.
In 2020 The Astronomical Miracle and guest artists were set to go into a recording studio to record their first release. Then the pandemic hit. Light was undaunted. Determined to create and release his music, he assembled a makeshift studio in his bedroom. “I was ready to record my music, so when the pandemic hit, I decided that I would just work with what I had.” And, boy, did he ever! Each of the releases of The Astronomical Miracle builds on the last.
As the release of four albums in nine months would indicate that creating music would be all encompassing of his time. But you would be wrong. Besides his prolific production of studio albums, Light owns Blacklight Records and developed an online music forum called Tapestack.com.
At a very young age, Light discovered the world of music after finding a box of his mother’s records. Corey began curating a collection that involved regularly scouring flea markets for recording treasures around his hometown of Litchfield, NH. When Light was eighteen, he decided that his efforts would be better served if he owned his own outlet for music. Thus, he opened Blacklight Records in Nashua. Then, Light created Tapestack.com for other like-minded artists to raise their profiles and promote their music. Eight bands are currently on the forum. These include The Astronomical Miracle, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Liquid Sunshine, Earthmark, and The Beau Reve.
Corey, who experiments with retail and online promotion in addition to music, always has new projects in development. No details on any of these as of yet. But, considering his immense ambition, it is likely to be revealed sooner rather than later. I am looking forward to following the creative career of The Astronomical Miracle in all forms of hallucinatory soundscaped songs, as well as the Tapestack stable of talent. You can find these treasures on Bandcamp and Tapestack.com. And be sure to visit Blacklight Records if you find yourself in Nashua.
Related: Dreaming in Pink by The Astronomical Miracle album review
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