Process of Illumination

 Whilst the Magic Mushroom Band shares members with

Astralasia, the Magic Mushroom Band has been a working

band for far longer. The band first came together in 1982

when they first began playing their brand of “Psychedelic

Space Pop”. It was said that one of the original members

Kim Russell AKA Kim OZ was discovered by another founder

member Gary Masters AKA Gary Moonboot when he heard

her singing in the bath and promptly climbed through the

bathroom window and invited her to join the band. In addition

to becoming a member of the Magic Mushroom Band Kim

has subsequently become Mrs. Masters. The band has had

many members over the year with members sometimes

coming and going in twos or threes, although the core trio of

Masters, Russell and Guitarist Gary Twining have remained

throughout the band’s history. Initially the band released a

limited edition cassette, which was limited to a run of 1,000

copies. The cassette idea was to remain popular even while

the band were releasing proper albums and all of these

cassettes are now highly prized collectors items The band has

also released nine albums in the period 1982 through to 1994.

In 1990 members of the Magic Mushroom Band embarked on

what was to be initially an offshoot band or part time project if

you like. This project was the Ambient trance band Astralasia

which although sharing members of the Mushroom band were

actually more dance oriented than the Mushies as they were

now known. By 1992 however, the band were devoting about

50% of their time to the offshoot band Astralasia and were

experimenting more and more with the ambient dance led

direction of that band which has continued up to the present

while the Mushroom Band have been on indefinite hold since

1995.

By the time of the album Process Of Illumination the line up

had once more changed and the band recruited multi

instrumentalist Swordfish on drums, guitarist Eddie Bones

and violinist Sam Turner to the fold. Many fans considered the

resulting album to be the best album the band ever made and

the original copies of the album have now become incredibly

collectable. The album includes a version of the Beatles

Tomorrow Never Knows alongside original material such as

Kaleidoscope, I’ll Be Your Friend and Halcyon Days.

This re issue as with all the Magic Mushroom Band CDs in

this series of re issues has been re mastered for release. 

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