A new single from The Tear Garden is like a signal from beyond—dark, dreamy, and full of promise. With Astral Elevator arriving October 24th on Artoffact Records, cEvin Key and Edward Kaspel prove they haven’t lost their edge. This track’s pulsing bass, eerie synths, and vivid lyrics capture the spirit of their early work while hinting at something new—and it’s got me ready for the full trip.
Baroque sounding synths conjure up velvet flowers
To hear a new single from The Tear Garden is exciting, and hopeful. Making me hopeful for a whole new album. Good thing they aren’t just teasing. That album comes out on October 24th and is titled Astral Elevator and will be out on Artoffact Records. But while I wait to ride up and down on with the group in the waiting room, at least there is this banger of a single to keep me company.
The last time I got to ride with the The Tear Garden was eight years ago, on 2017’s Brown Acid Caveat. That album had cuts featuring Dre Robinson, and former Legendary Pink Dots members and Last Man to Fly alumni, Ryan Moore, Martijn De Kleer. I’m always happy to hear those guys playing together, whether on LPD record from their era with the band, or on a The Tear Garden record. I don’t know if any of them will once again be on the new one, but fingers crossed, I’m sure it will have some guests from their wide collective of friends and family.
This single just seems to be cEvin Key and Edward Kaspel, but the music is different from the Key songs you’d hear Kaspel sing on one of Key’s solo records, and retains the hard driving feel electro-pyschedelic-goth feel of the early The Tear Garden releases. Kaspel’s endless stream of lyrics is in fine form here too, and adds to the sense of urgency I feel, the excitement about more music from one of my favorite projects. The song has me craving so much more, but at least we only have a few months to wait, and it will arrive just the week before Halloween, so I know what my soundtrack is going to be in advance, before the lead up to that hallowed holiday. The piece was mixed by Greg Reely and their is a new video for the song too from Cory Gorski.
So the song? Hard hitting bass lines couple perfectly with the words, and baroque sounding synths conjure up velvet flowers of chamber music from a dingy warehouse where people dance and rave in the black light. But this is all present. They’ve come back and brought the good stuff. I’ve come down from the bad trip with the brown acid. This song is heavenly and has me soaring with optimism, and their imminent return.
Astral Elevator is available on Artoffact October 24, 2025. [Bandcamp]
