Wow...this is a massive triple CD boxset that collects recordings of all four of Astromero's live performances from their 2006 U.S. tour, fully documenting their earth-shaking sets in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and Brooklyn. The duo of Hiroshi Hasegawa (also of legendary Japanese psych-noise band C.C.C.C. and South Saturn Delta) and Damion Romero (formerly of Speculum Fight and head of the P-Tapes label) have been far from prolific, with the self-titled double CD set on Troniks from 2005 collecting their only studio recordings, so this hefty set is a must for any fans of Astromero's crushing space-noise. The duo originally existed between 1995 and 2005 as an offshoot of Hasegawa's post-C.C.C.C. project Astro, where he further explored the transcendental power of distorted analog synthesizers. When Hasegawa teamed up with Romero in the early 90's, the two of them collaborated both through sending recordings back and forth through the mail and eventually meeting up in person. The result is some of the heaviest synthesizer-based freeform drone noise ever, a combination of the ultra-low-end synth throb heaviness that Romero had experimented with in his own work, and the sweeping cosmic electronics of Hasegawa's music that came out sounding like someone took only the crazy electronic sounds from Hawkwind's Space Ritual, made them one hundred times denser and heavier, and played back the psychedelic synth sounds at skull-shattering levels of volume and distortion.

It wasn't until 2006 that folks over here in the U.S. would finally get a chance to witness the power of Astromero. The four-date tour was centered around a performance at the No Fun Fest in Brooklyn, NY in March of 2006, and a trio of West Coast dates were included in the itinerary. This set captures every one of these performances, with the first disc featuring the Los Angeles and San Francisco sets, the second disc featuring two seperate shows that took place in Oakland, California, and the third disc capturing the monolithic performance at No Fun. Each performance typically runs from 20-40 minutes, and erupts with huge showers of heavily distorted synth buzz and crunching, crushing low-end frequencies that sometimes reach Earth 2 levels of ambient heaviness, over top of which the two musicians unleash all manner of squiggly analogue signals and swooping oscillator noise, deep-space blips and bleeps, sounds that could be swarms of intergalactic battle angels singing in choir, and fluctuating sinewaves that make my heart shudder. Every one of these performances is epic and unbelievably loud, and totally improvised, and in spite of that fact this never sounds like the kind of chaotic earblow skree that people usually associate with Japanese noise. Astromero are on a totally different level, forging crushing, almost overwhelming but totally engaging slabs of trippy, psychedelic formlessness. Highly recommended to anyone into Astro and/or C.C.C.C. and psychedelic, brain-melting cosmic drone noise.

Troniks packaged this three-CD set in a huge jewel box with a cool, minimal design on the outside that focuses on the set's track listing and Astromero's logo, and on the inside it has photos of interstellar oceans of stars burning through the night sky, and an eight-page booklet with track notes, show details, and photos from each of the performances.