Astra

Ad Astra, a sci-fi thriller set in the future, stars Brad Pitt as an elite astronaut who travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father and unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet. His journey will uncover secrets that challenge the nature of human existence and our place in the cosmos. Max Richter’s score, informed by detailed conversations with Brad Pitt and the film’s director James Gray, combines strings, electronics and vocals creating an epic soundscape underpinning the emotional power and scale of the movie. His soundtrack has been described as “a stunning kind of symphony” by Vanity Fair. Max Richter first began composing the music for Ad Astra almost two years ago, in the initial phase of the film’s production.

Progressive rock band Ad Astra returns with Surface of Last Scattering. Led by Doug Bowers (music), and Christopher Flynn (lyrics) the material is classic Ad Astra, with all the dreamy, melodic and cinematic elements that fans around the globe have learned to love over the years. However, this incarnation of the band mixes it up with adding elements of physics, stellar cartography and church liturgy that place this album somewhere in between the late 60's proto prog and the new generation of art rock…

With critics and listeners seemingly already in their corner, San Diego classic space/prog five-piece Astra make a Moog-heavy sophomore outing in the form of "The Black Chord". Astra won many ears to their side with 2009’s Rise Above debut, "The Weirding", on which they offset retro King Crimson-style melodies with a sense of modern urgency that indeed also shows up throughout the six tracks of the second album. It’s Astra’s balance of old and new that makes their recorded output so fascinating, and as the US has become even more enamored of all things taggable as progressive and/or psychedelic in the last three years - at least in an underground sense – The Black Chord arrives at just the right time and in just the right place for the band to be able to make the most of their songwriting…