Artist description A trippy journey through the many grooves of electronica, Astrogroove jams live what others must spin. Organic Big Beat grooves, haunting textures, breakneck jungle beats, outer space sounds, wild drum breakdowns, and tripped out ambience are all part of their compelling, eclectic mix of styles, sound paintings and rhythmic explorations.

Music Style trippy jungle, organic break beat, trip hop,

Musical Influences breakbeat, jungle, drum n'bass, ambient, tip hop, trance, electronica

Similar Artists Amon Tobin, Loop Guru, Tipsy, Red Snapper, Coldcut, Up, Bustle and Out, Funki Porcini, DJ Food, Chrystal Method, Fatboy Slim, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy,The Herbaliser,

Artist History Formed by Richard Underhill (ex-Shuffle Demons) in early 1997, the group features three outstanding multi-instrumentalists whonever lose sight of the GROOVE.AstroGroove has gigged solidly around Toronto and has been featured at the Ottawa and Toronto jazz festivals. Over the past 2 years they’ve been concentrating on their debut recording, playing only the ocassional rave and club date. They are now ready to begin touring and promoting their new release. Richard Underhill, founder of the Shuffle Demons, has over the past fifteen years performed at over 100 Jazz, Folk, and Rock festivals in Canada, Europe and Cuba, and has toured Europe 15 times from Estonia to Italy. His preference has always been the blending of different styles of music through improvisation. His sampling sources include distorted animal sounds, sound effects, movie soundtracks, and groovesource albums.Genie award nominated producer Jono Grant brings to AstroGroove years of album production and performance. He has produced tracks for Kim Stockwood, the Tea Party, Jaymz B. and the Royal Jelly Orchestra (Composer, Musical Director, Producer), Carl Strygg, and some of the city' s finest jazz professionals. He has just been nominated for to Genie awards for his work on the film score for “Jacob Two Two and the Hooded Fang.”Great Bob Scott is respected nationwide as one of the hardest grooving live jungle drummers in Canada. He has been a major part of the Toronto live electronica scene with the Excalceolators. He is perhaps best know for his creative and explosive drumming work with the Look People and the Royal Jelly Orchestra. He has worked with artists as diverse as Jim Carrey, Bobby Wiseman, Holly Cole and Pizzicato Five and has gigged extensively throughout Europe and North America.

Group Members Richard Underhill-Alto & Bass Sax, Flutes, Samples, Drum Programming, Sound Sculptures. Jono Grant-Bass, Rhodes, Moog, Guitar, Piano, Samples, Drum Programming. Great Bob Scott-Drums, Percussion, Samples

Instruments Sax, Bass, Drums, Moog, Rhodes, Sampler, Flutes, Machine, Piano, Percussiono

Albums AstroGroove - AstroGroove

Press Reviews The Ottawa Sun, Monday July 21, 1997 - By Rich Overall "Leave it to Richard Underhill to reinvent himself in a from that’s perfectly in tune with the hottest new sounds. Known to thousands of adoring fans for his innovative sax work as the frontman of the Shuffle Demons, Underhill brought his scorching new incarnation to Ottawa yesterday for a noon hour appearance at the National Gallery’s On the Jazz Fringe Series. Underhill has dubbed this new venture AstroGroove, but we’ll just call it his alter ego. Seriously, there’s actually no ego at all involved in this supercool trio. The band’s raison d’etre is a fluid blend of trippy acid jazz, trip hop and jungle. It features a cosmic combination of everything from the mystical recreation of background sound that harkens back to Arthur Lyman’s Quite Village and Santana’s Curuvanaserti to quadruple echo Coltrane soundalikes. The music is a full-bottomed improvisational charge of AstroGroove’s light brigade approach to performance, where the rhythm section provides the musical umbilical that holds the whole thing together.While Underhill divided his time between rousing sax work and supplying the tunes personally through sampling, the real guts of the project was Jono Grant on bass and fender Rhodes, and the merciless drum kit of Great Bob Scott. The tunes ran between 10 and 20 minutes a pop, and it was up to both these guys to keep this rolling without skipping a beat.Grant cracked a relentless big bottom groove while Scott’s drumming was unbelievably crisp and unfettered by the blazing sun-which was beating down on the heads of both rhythm players. Meanwhile Underhill was up to his usual tricks. He’s a crafty dude, serving up alto, or altered sax on steroids. Often it sounds like a baritone on heavy medication-nothing like adding a little personality to your instrument, I always say.But in addition, Underhill slid between funk, R&B and roots edges. He’d move into a decidedly Middle Eastern lilt and then crack right back into that slow punch made famous by Eddie Harris - to whom one of the songs was dedicated.It was a spirited set from a band that’s not yet released a CD. But the content of their driving performance indicated AstroGroove had more than enough in the chops department to facilitate studio excellence.

Location Toronto, Ontario - Canada

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