Man Or Astroman?: What Remains Inside A Black Hole
Lucky planet Earth. The super-prolific instrumental guitar aliens in Man Or Astroman? have about a zillion recordings available for purchase, and have been coming out with a new album every season since forming. The newest offerings are Made From Technetium, which is all new stuff, and What Remains Inside A Black Hole, a collection of B-sides dating from 1995 and originally released in Australia. So why should you be itching to acquire these fine recordings? If you don't have any Man Or Astroman?, you need some, simply because you can't have enough fun in your life, and because instrumental guitar-rock, when it's done this fast and catchy, is one of the most enjoyable things ever. If you already have some of Man Or Astroman?'s music, you know that the group has a knack for making simple music that varies widely. As these two albums demonstrate, that sound is constantly evolving: Made From Technetium is more experimental, slower in sections, and more vocal than What Remains Inside A Black Hole, a standard but still excellent example of the group's space-rock product. Both albums are sprinkled with the weird low-tech effects and B-movie samples that have become the group's trademark, and both are great. You'll dance to this music in your home, speed along with it in your car, and miss it when it's not around. The Man Or Astroman? vision of the 1960s' future is one of the best things about rock 'n' roll's present.