RU Spaced Out 2

 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.

The album R U Spaced Out II released in 1993 was the follow

up to the Re Hash album, which saw the band revisiting older

material in the style of Ast ralasia. R U Spaced Out II was a

more traditional Magic Mushroom Band album and found the

band in more familiar territory with the album pretty much split

between the psychedelic pop and spacey instrumentals of old

and as if to reinforce the point there is an excellent cover of

Hawkwind's Hurry On Sundown alongside original band

generated material such as New Day and Remember Your

Future. An edit of the track Life Is So Strange was also released

as a promotional EP alongside tracks from the previous two

albums Re Hash and Spaced Out for those who seek out

collector's items.

R U Spaced Out II continues the series of Magic Mushroom Band

re issues which will see the bands back catalogue remastered

for this series of releases over the next twelve months. 

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