Man or Astroman? – ‘Your Weight On The Moon’
Man or Astroman?
‘Your Weight On The Moon’
Overground Records
Release date: 26th September 2011
Back in the mid-90s Man or Astroman? along with Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet and Huevos Rancheros were one of the ‘big-three’ instrumental bands whose popularity dramatically increased with the release of the ‘Pulp Fiction’ movie and the subsequent interest in surf-guitar music.
Benefiting from a willingness to push the traditional boundaries of surf music by including clips from B-movies, a punk influence, humour and a brilliant live show, they soon achieved huge popularity aided by the strong support of John Peel and other DJs and the tireless assistance of their independent label One Louder Records.
This reissue compiles probably their finest work, the ‘Your Weight On The Moon’ 10-track mini album which includes a brilliant cover version of ‘Destination Venus’ – a rare foray into the world of vocals – and their debut EP ‘Mission Into Chaos’ and its successor ‘Return To Chaos’, both EPs having a spy-film theme. Think Philip K. Dick. Thankfully this breaks the release up perfectly, just when you’re thinking ‘that might be enough instrumental music for now’, the pace and the tone changes nicely.
Nicely packaged with lots of reviews and hilarious interviews from the time, including one with Everett True in which the journalist was rumoured to be so drunk the band interviewed themselves and gave the recorder back to him!
Okay, so the album sounds a little dated now, and not quite as fun as seeing CoCo The Electronic Monkey Wizard set fire to his computer monitor head, but nevertheless a reissue worthy of praise. 8/10
Rotten Johnny