Electronic Artist ROB ASTOR Releases “Unseen” Tracks On RAHU

Jackson, Michigan – November 4, 2007 – With the release of four studio albums and a holiday collection to his credit, Rob Astor has cleared his musical vaults, packaging numerous unreleased recordings as a double CD offering entitled RAHU. The title is fitting for two reasons. The first reason, in Ancient Burmese, the word “rahu” means “unseen”. The second reason, a bit more complex, is as a science fiction author, Rob has been writing a novel bearing the title RAHU.

Packed with music intended as a soundtrack to three stories, alternate versions of previously released material, and filled out with brand new recordings, Rob Astor equates his RAHU collection to a box set. “Musicians always have leftovers that just don’t fit on their albums. I know that very well now,” Rob says with a laugh. “In every sense of box sets being filled with outtakes and rarities, RAHU is my little box set.”

“Many of the tracks on the first CD are music I wrote as a soundtrack for the RAHU story,” Rob Astor says. “I had an idea in mind to create a full blown soundtrack, thinking the story was good enough to be a film.” The music goes with key scenes in the story. Fusing the sounds of Tangerine Dream, John Williams, James Horner, Spencer Nilsen, Norm Orenstein, Biosphere, and Ken Davis, Rob Astor’s soundtrack works in a way that can only be described as Rob Astor in content.

Using a blend of New Age and Neo-Classical, the track “Life On Europa” is heartbreakingly beautiful, gorgeously magical in its execution. Much like the story, the RAHU collection has many moods woven throughout its tapestry. “Dinosaur Spheres Descending From Orbit” and “Earth Twin & Earth Parallel” build to a real sense of danger while “Aurora On Planet Rahu” is bright, filled with a sense of hope. “Six Moons Of Pluto”, inspired by a recurring dream, “Sways in time with the thoughts of trees.” The calming tranquility of “Walking In the Garden At 3 AM” will transport you to another dimension filled with the peacefulness of a midnight walk through nature.

The RAHU novel tracks are just a sampling of Rob Astor’s soundtrack visions. “Summer Rain On Ganymede”, combining Jazz elements to sound rainy, belongs to a short story entitled “Ganymede Summer”. “Dream Sequence”, “Approaching Storm”, and “X’hal Minor” were all written for another novel, BATTLEGROUND ALBANY. Reflective of his John Williams influenced Neo-Classical work on XENOPHOBIA, “X’hal Minor” is built around converging String Sections leading up to complete chaos in the form of a pounding back beat. “If I had a character named ‘X’hal Minor’ in the story of XENOPHOBIA, I would have placed the track on that album.”

Stepping back in time to early 2003, many of the tracks Rob Astor was working on remained largely unfinished because of a snowmobiling accident. “As I began working on XENOPHOBIA and BEYOND MARSTROPOLIS (in 2006), I also wanted to finish the work I’d begun back then (in 2003). I didn’t want this body of material to lay around forever incomplete. The music wanted life as much as I wanted to give it life.” The extra effort was worth the wait!

RAHU has a total of thirty tracks. That’s two and a half hours of music! Some of Rob Astor’s best recorded works are showcased within the confines of these two compact discs. “I fell right back into the mindset I had (then) for the unfinished music. Surprisingly, polishing them was much easier than I expected.”

A grand total of fourteen tracks might have once been a part of Rob’s first CD, QUADRANGULAR OSCILLATIONS, including the nine tracks written and recorded for the story of RAHU, as well as the other soundtrack pieces. One of those was intended to be the first album’s title track, “Quadrangular Oscillation”. Rob was looking for a very specific sound to the music, one which he didn’t find until much later. “I was going for a very metallic feel,” Rob explains. “I didn’t get it right until well after the fact.”

“Quadrangular Oscillation” was Rob’s first experiment at setting music to a scene in a movie. “I wrote the track to go with the part in ‘Cube 2: Hypercube’ where everyone faces off with the Razor Sphere.”

Also included on RAHU are a few more versions of Rob Astor’s favorite piece of music, “Echoes Of Raindrops (Xack’s Theme)”, which belongs to a novel called LIBERATION DAY. (There’s also a version on MARSTROPOLIS.) “Two of those versions were finished in 2003 and I completely forgot I had them for a few years.” Look for a rain of computer chips instead of raindrops while listening to these. The third is an extended remix, finished in 2000.

The longest piece of music on RAHU from those past sessions, and in Rob Astor’s entire catalogue to date, is “Northern Lights”, a New Age ode to the Aurora Borealis. It was conceived and envisioned to be Symphonic in length and released as a one track EP. In this finished version, Rob Astor finds the length to be perfect. “The music is still a soundtrack for a natural phenomena.”

Some of the album’s other alternates include an extended version of the highly popular BEYOND MARSTROPOLIS track “Get Vertical!” as well as various versions of “Endor-9 Aviary”. RAHU outtake material can be sampled in the form of two tracks intended for the previously mentioned album in the form of “Double Helix” and “Dark Side Of The Sun”, left out because they felt different than all the rest of the music, according to Rob.

As for brand new recordings, Rob Astor serves up several on RAHU. “Eventide Sunrise” combines Electric Guitar with New Age. “Hades Playing Piano” is a Piano lament Rob says was inspired by a dream detailed in the album’s liner notes. Looking to the past for inspiration, and bringing his soundtrack endeavors full circle, Rob Astor also created music fit for the days of silent films in his track “Silent Movie Romance”, proving he can explore any style and perfect it.

Pick up a copy of Rob Astor’s latest release RAHU. It just might turn out to be the soundtrack for your creative projects!

Rob Astor’s new CD, RAHU, is now available at CDBaby.com, Apple’s iTunes, MyRealTalent.com, Electronic.MyRealTalent.com, and Mood.MyRealTalent.com.

Visit Rob on the Internet at:

http://www.myspace.com/soloartistrobastor

RAHU Track List

— CD 1 —
Get Vertical! (Extended Version)
Radial Cybernet 3
Northern Lights
Liquid Glass
Eventide Sunrise
Life On Europa
Walking In The Garden At 3 AM
Drifting Through Stardust
Six Moons Of Pluto
Geometric Language
Geometric Language II
Aurora On Planet Rahu
Dinosaur Spheres Descending From Orbit
Earth Twin & Earth Parallel
Dream Sequence
Approaching Storm
X’hal Minor

— CD 2 —
Summer Rain On Ganymede
Hades Playing Piano
Silent Movie Romance
Double Helix
Dark Side Of The Sun
Quadrangular Oscillation
Diamond Dust
Endor-9 Aviary (Edit)
Endor-9 Aviary (Extended Intro)
Echoes Of Raindrops (Xack’s Theme) (Science Fiction Mix Alternate Key)
Echoes Of Raindrops (Xack’s Theme) (Science Fiction Mix)
Echoes Of Raindrops (Xack’s Theme) (Shower In The Rain Extended Remix)
Aurora On Planet Rahu (Extended Version)