Roadburn Album of the Day:

Praise for Night Flights‘s Vol.1 from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: First release from this group of kosmische synth-float dream-space drifters, who normally spend their time kicking up more of a sonic ruckus in local space rock combo Carlton Melton (Rich Millman and Andy Duvall), but in Night Flights, all of that rock is ejected through the airlock, and left to drift weightlessly amongst the stars!

This new 12″ perhaps the soundtrack to that transition. Equal parts Cluster, Eno, Tangerine Dream, this is all abstract, ambient bliss out. Psychedelic new age for the new age, long tones float and shimmer, melodies unfurl lazily, expanding and then drifting apart.
Textures shift in slow motion, thick billowing clouds of sound roil softly over a hushed backdrop of barely there thrum, it’s chilled out and gloriously laid back, the music from some long ago planetarium show. A show presented in slow motion, the various planets and stars swirling slowly, the contrails making all manner of prismatic patters that ebb and flow, pulse and fade.
Imagine the trippiest parts of Carlton Melton (of which there are plenty), but then slow them down, and stretch them way out. Let them drift skyward, spreading out across the stars like some weird sonic filter, channeling the strange broadcasts from the furthest reaches into chiming guitar shimmer and swoonsome chordal whooshes, moody murky synthiness and tripped out atmospheric dronemusic, everything blurred and smeared into a fantastically mesmerizing slab of gloriously free form minimal space music, that should hit the spot for both psych nerds and drone lovers alike.

At 40 years old, Aquarius is the oldest independent record store in San Francisco. We try to only carry music we love, and we’re always searching for more new, cool, weird and wonderful music. All of which we then share with you, our loyal customers.

Night Flights Vol I available at Norman Records

https://www.normanrecords.com/records/150862-night-flights-night-flights-vol-1-

7/10 from Laurie (Staff) on 11 December 2014
There’s a growing trend of late in which artists and labels are releasing cosmic records deeply rooted in '70s nostalgic wonder. From new excursions like The Advisory Circle’s From Out There and Ambidextrous’ Geek Mythology to the reissue of Vangelis’ gloriously pompous Heaven and Hell, the acidic space-gazing of yesteryear has been reinvigorated, maybe as part of a grander plot to tell NASA to get us to Alpha Centauri quicker. Come on Obama, you’re really lagging here. You too Japan.
Night Flights, a new project featuring members of Carlton Melton, stays true to the instrumentation of the time on their first trip into the final frontier, featuring primarily vintage styled drifting synthesisers and episodes of guitar noodlage. Like space, the music doesn’t really change all that much per side, droning along with the blank depth of an endless vacuum. But that’s the point - it’s the full immersion into a single sonic landscape that this lot focus on. Side A floats along like a good Eno project, with just as much reverb as ‘Deep Blue Day’ but barely any chord changes. It’s nice, and if you want to just chill for a while then it’s ideal.
Things kick off a bit on the flip, hitting you with an actual beat, overdriven keys and refreshing dips into dissonance. Presumably this is the sound of finding a stormy planet being battered by solar flares and worrying about your ship becoming a cosmic fireworks display. The guitar enters in the second half of first track ‘Alpha Jerk’ heralding further variation over the drone backdrop, before it putters out into ‘Lure’, a more minimal interpretation of the first side. To round it off, the dark plod of your dead body is featured in ‘Corpse Strut’, so you’ve now died and are a lost skeleton in a tin can. I bet volume 2 starts with an alien colony resurrecting you then proceeding to ‘test’ your sanity away. Whatever the case, this is a nice but somewhat derivative hark back to the ambient masterworks of old, and definitely a great meditation piece.

Night Flights Vol I released on Agitated Records Dec 2014

https://midheaven.com/item/night-flights-vol1-by-night-flights-lp#.VPo6K8a9g7A

Tripping the Light fantastic courtesy of Night Flights, a new San Franciscan take on the path taken by the likes of Schultze / Tangerine Dream / Cluster / Eno and other doyens of the space-synth-riff float. Night Flights is a recording project of lo-fi, ambient, synth-driven, soundscapes. Consisting of members of the band Carlton Melton and Mastered by John McBain, Night Flights is a collection of sounds prepared 'for headphones only'. It is very much influenced in spirit by the 1980's late night television series 'Night Flights'. Rich Millman - synth and guitar; Andy Duvall - galaga-guitar on 'alpha jerk'. Recorded and mixed by Rich Millman, Mastered by John McBain at JPM Mastering. Art by Kaveh Soofi Its not like this hasn’t been done before, but Agitated hasn’t released anything so chilled and spatial… and after the year we've had, this 40 minhutes from Night Fligths de-bugs the sytstem and sets our mind straight! This is the ideal comedown record for the concerted psychedelicist. Freak on my flotation tank flag wavers.

Night Flights Vol I ( side B )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYf8IpIolFo

Night Flights Vol I ( side A )