Ashtray Navigations - Deadicated To The Sensory Armada

Ah, Phil Todd, Phil Todd. The ubiquitous improviser of the north. A man so practiced at playing solo that here in Yorkshire he's even had a phrase coined after him, “on your Todd”, to mean being all a-lonesome. Right here we've got a rare vinyl outing for the be-ponytailed one, and it's numbered out of 100 so if you don't like it you can always wait for it to sell out and the flip it online and make literally pence. On the disc itself we've got his usual crazy psychedelic mumbo jumbo, opening with a big ol' skronky noise-fest before we settle into the second track where we're taken on a bit of a cosmic synth journey towards the third track, where we land on some distant alien planet with throbbing laser pulses, before on the final track of the first side we finally glimpse the majesty of Robot Christ, pounding through the cosmic forests with his glowing kryptonite legs before gliding through the mountains on his giant robot owl. The flipside opens with some Casio beats and glitchy static over a little east-meets-west melodic improvisation before the album's centrepiece, the 15-minute title track (except he spells 'Dedicated' properly this time). Here we are once again “getting cosmic”, with persistent synth drones and pulses and loops over some overdriven solo guitar coming at you direct from the heat-swept mountains of Mars, where Todd stands tall even as Arnie's face threatens to pop like an overripe gooseberry. Very heroic, Phil. This slowly ebbs away, then we've got a pretty little guitar/synth meditation that's over practically as soon as it starts and that's yer album. If you're running low on psychedelics, here's one to top you up for the winter.