http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-world-wakes-with-her/id345278512


to our devoted friends and fans
we can't tell you how much we would appreciate a review and a rating on iTunes!
we would be eternally grateful :)
much love from
Astral Travel

 
What a wild ride! Technically over two years in the making (the basic outline for Arkangelis was written in the spring of 2007 at the Mason St. house in Santa Cruz, CA :)), Arkangelis is finally finished, released and ready to be shared. (Its finally available to buy at www.cdbaby.com/AstralTravel2)
Below you'll find personnel info, the liner notes, and whatever else comes rambling out right now!
Lots of love,
thanks to all of you who have supported the band for the past year and a half,
connecting to you is what makes it All worthwhile ;)
Andrew Webb Bauer


personnel
AWB - Guitars, Bass, Vocals, Drums, Sitar, Piano, Organ, Synthesizers, Chimes, Sleigh Bells, Tambourine, Shakers, Lyrics, Production, Mixing/Mastering

Ryan Lotz: Drums, Percussion and Engineering

Danielle Hiscock: Angel Voice :) (Arkangelis and Seraphim)

Alix Moren: Angel Voice (Joined in the Vast)

Joel Pixton: Bass (Joined in the Vast)


The album was recorded between Spring 2007 and Spring 2009 in Pacific Grove, Santa Cruz, Mt. Madonna, San Francisco and Big Sur, California.

Track List
1. Arkangelis
2. The Prize
3. Seraphim
4. The Brightest Star
5. At the Spinning Wheel
6. Roses in Starlight's Desert
7. Walking With Wings
8. The Rapture
9. Sky Blue, and Ivory
10. Undrawn Parallel
11. Joined in the Vast.
12. Arkangelis (DVNTY Mix)

While some of these songs continue in the tradition of impersonal, universal "tools" really for introspection and ultimately spiritual transformation via the vibrational power of the music, this album also contains some deeply personal songs (I will let you be the judge of which ones). As such, I was concerned with them bringing people back to their OWN being while listening to them, so I was careful to arrange the  music and lyrics in a way that wasn't overbearing on the listener, but rather vague and ethereal. This way the listener can project his or her inner world onto the song, not the other way around.

The lyrics as well are shrouded in a certain "code" that is meant to be interpretable for each individual. A word of advice while listening while reading lyrics: the lyrics can be heard, and should be heard differently every time. Music is ALIVE! and organic and never the same. Theres a part during Ark where Danielle is supposed to sing "that I see when attuned", but she sings "that I sing when in tune". I love it when that happens---its almost as if the music wants something to happen, and you have nothing to do with it, you are just a conduit---a vessel; a hierophant between heaven and earth. Theres nothing else like it, and at the same time, EVERYTHING is like that!

Without further ado, here are the lyrics, as I hear them:

Arkangelis

The flower, the Crown, The Lotus, the Jewel
and I'm shining now, I'm shining for you
Like an Angel above, in its like just a glow
going around a halo, its own
oh Reveal it to me, what I seek is to find
that I know what I am, when I know the Divine

Diamonds are Eyes, and they melt into you
and I'm flowing now, I'm flowing to you
Open your heart and you open your eyes
and you know how I try when you see me inside
oh Reveal it to me what I seek is to find
oh your shining a light well your gentleness might

Whoever you are You're the pure and untouched
Where theres only what is when you find out whats not
Like a mirror without shape That I see when attuned (sing when in tune)
its reflecting and knowing and showing truth
oh Reveal it to me What I seek is to find
It's waiting in the wings of my mind


The Prize

When the speed of life is flashing, you don't let moments die
And you blame others while you lie in ruin, life's a reprisal from desire
Setting sleep on fire while silence dreams, I am the prize illusions fight for
Feeling more and more just like a dream, this is a dream that can wake you up

Theres no room for two when one is only, I worship you by dissappearing
And if you've arrived then tell us so, we can make you and we can break you
We look to others stars to be completed, never looking inside for energy
We look to the stars from our stage for our lines, and we stare as they whisper there is no resisting


The Brightest Star

Someone you find to be lost in the whirlwind
someone builds you a bridge to their world with
and everything happens when its supposed to
and everything happens how its supposed to

Dark has to fight to survive in the light
setting your eyes to new heights
the suns rose has thorns you say
and you gather to drive your brightest star away

Like the wind, only love's effects are seen
bending or breaking under its wings
you are heaven sent to direct
and in the heavens you belong


At the Spinning Wheel  

I'm holding all that is and not to know that We are the children of our thoughts
but oh, can you feel, the unreal unravelling now?

oh but the seamstress she believes, she's just a tear, in the seamless
For my queen, i weave desires quilt, my love, my regret, my guilt

everything is only what it is not, see that were children of our thoughts
but oh can you feel, the unreal unravelling now?


Walking With Wings

In the season of your heart, you are still a part
Far away where you want to fly, while you wait for your stars to align
With two feet on the ground and a head up in the clouds
Left to drown in sunlights empty Bath
I'm being let go of what I hold and have

Now that i have wings, well the skies, they are all closed
so through the world you walk until you get the call
and you'd know that you had wings but your eyes they are all closed
so through the world we walk until you get the call (did you want it at all)

You've been livin' a life on autopilot
till you drop into the skies
cause theres no way to see out of compromise
now is the time to put it all on the line, again

Now that I have wings well the skies they are all closed
so through the world you walk until you get the call
and you'd know that you had wings, but your eyes, they are all closed
so through the world you walk, until we get the call (give up all to get all)


Sky Blue and Ivory

Once she wore white and he wore blue, and what they were they hardly knew
through winters chill he could not tell, her tears they broke before they fell

and all that it takes is a spark to set your dream on fire
caught in the wake while burning away, burning away for love hereafter

through snow and roses we can see no longer lace and ivory
now she wears red and he wears black, no where in mind for them to go back

and all that it takes is a spark to set your dream on fire
caught in the wake while burning away, burning away for love hereafter

two fallen angels far from the flame, no longer mining memories vein
two diamonds stained and cut by love, when its only for you its never enough



Undrawn Parallel

Untouched and unaffected, an undrawn parallel
in a drop the sun's reflected, but with no light of its own

Uncaused and unconditioned, A relative absolute
Immaculate but unconcieved, You are incomparable

Formless before there was form, Without attribute
Pure and white and light and empty, You are beautiful


Joined in the Vast

in the space that shared us once, when we found that space was lost
If you can hear purity speak with a stare
you'll see Innocent is what we were

Joined in the Vast

In your time, you have turned, to only where knows when
and you sleep into another dream imagining
and once fragile faith, i've been healed, now is the time for everything to be revealed

Joined in the Vast


 

Album Art by Andrew Bauer.
All Lyrics Copyright, Light Wave Radio Records and Andrew Bauer, 2009.



TABS FOR OUR FRIENDS!

ARKANGELIS

MAIN RIFF guitar I

e-------9------------------------------0--------------

b---------10---12---10------------9-----9-----------

g----11-----11---11---11--11------------11-------

d------------------------------------------------------

a-----------------------------------------------------

e-----------------------------------------------------

 

CHORDS (play over main riff) guitar II

e----9------9----7---x---7----7---x----7---5---5--------------------------

b----10----10---9---x---7----7---x----7---5---5-------------------------

g----11----11---9---x---8----8---x----8---6---6--------------------------

d----11----11---9---x---9----9---x----9---7---7-----------------------------

a----9------9-----7--x----9----9---x----9---7---7---------------------------

e----9------9-----7--x----7----7---x----7---5---5---------------------------

Hello Dear Friends
Sorry for such a long delay in writing. We've been working very hard on new music, and collaborations with some new personal (Joel on Bass and Drums, Alix on Vocals :)) and its a very exciting and fruitful time. The deadline for Arkangelis's release has been set for May 12, 2009.
Also of note is this weeks release of John Frusciante's new album "The Empyrean"....buy this record boys and girls. IMO, the best record to come out in a very long time. Its possibly John's best, and as usually incredibly deep, powerful and inspiring. He's been such a big inspiration and influence on our music, and such a kindred spirit, that he's mentioned whenever we talk about why we love music.
So, please know that new songs from Astral Travel are alas coming soon.
And as always, there is nothing to do, except stay aware of consciousness....when you see life as a dream, you are always meditating. You can only see the false and false. The true is ever-asserting itself...you need not seek it, it will find you.
IN LOVE AND UNITY,
A/T

First of all, thank you to those who have kept in touch with us, and kept us in your prayers. As we begin to record the rest of "Arkangelis", we keep you all in our thoughts and hearts...recording is a total sadhana of karma yoga (intended to be!), so thank you for listening.

We apologize for not following up to all the comments and messages in the past few months. Several events occurred which demanded time for healing and reflection, away from music. Even making music was not possible. So, we extend our hearts again to you, to make music with and for you all.

We also made an appearance at the Power to the Peaceful festival at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, did some promotion, saw the city :) so if you were someone we met there, much love! and welcome to our myspace.

more news to come in the next weeks,

but know that you all mean the world to us

A/T

 

If the music doesn't take you beyond it, its has not achieved its intended purpose. If you don't get lost in it, then forget that music is playing at all---at some point---then the music isn't working....

This is the philosophy that drives the Astral Travel Experience, and will continue to be the intention for the duration of the project.

-A.W.B.

"My approach to music is very deep. I do not compromise with anybody or anything else in the world. I do not care. I want to really go beyond this materialistic world...not for the sake of enjoyment, entertainment, no. A musician must lift up the souls of the listeners, and take them towards Space." --Nikhil Banerjee

 

Gurukul' method of training is perhaps the most unique feature of our music and its heritage. It may appear rather old fashioned if not primitive to those students who sit around modern electronic wonder gadgets like tape or video recorders and pick up their lessons. But truth is what it is. Gurukul system presupposes that the students have to be in constant company and guidance of their master whom they serve in every way. As in the case of religion, it is only when the master is satisfied with the earnestness and sincerity of the student, then he imparts his power and the wealth of all the feelings and realizations of his own Sadhana or practice. Between the teacher and the taught the principle of give and take is only this. The student can only offer his devotion and service, and the teacher can let him have knowledge and truth. We can find easily how a system as such can effect the total development of a student both physical and mental under the strict vigilance of the teacher who knows how to let the flower blossom. Sad to say, for many many years this principle used to operate in a limited sense and the great Ustads kept up a very secretive approach. They would not let the student see the truth unless there was any blood relation between them. Baba Allauddin Khan Sahib was great in going against this current, and courageously proving that our music is not a hidden magic but essentially a matter of practice aiming at self-realization. He was not a musician by family tradition. His life is quite a classic story of endless tests and trials through which he found his way towards knowledge and enlightenment. It is probably this background which bred such a strong antipathy towards anything mean and narrow in the sphere of teaching. He was a teacher incarnate with the purest vibration. Any student, if really deserving, had from him the shower of his blessings and by the sheer touch of his genius felt quite transformed. Our much respected Sri Timirbaran, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, our most revered Annapurnadidi, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Sri Pannalal Ghosh are some of the brightest luminaries that Baba produced, and who else but he could do it.
Many people raised one common question that how we could learn sitar from an Ustad whose medium of expression was sarod. His biography records many interesting accounts of his training in veena, sursringar, rabab, surbahar and several other instruments. This opened up endless possibilities of those instruments and enabled him to assimilate and introduce a style of playing much bigger in scope and dimension compared to which the old recordings or other sitar playing sound limited. In course of teaching he said to me one day, "I have decided to teach you sitar after the style of Nawab Kutubudaulla Bahadur of Lucknow." He had such an exhaustive idea about the 'baj' or style of playing of every instrument that he could neatly distinguish between them and combine them as well for the best conceivable effect.
A man is, in point of fact, inseparable from his ideals. To my mind Baba Allauddin Khan Sahib was more of an institution than only a musician. While staying at Maihar Baba gave as a life-style very much like that of an Ashram or hermitage. As a person he was simple, unassuming and completely devoid of egoism. He lived a life with the minimum of necessities and always helped himself to the best of his physical abilities. He washed his own clothes every day. He had a strong aversion towards any kind of luxury which, he believed, could only make a man materialistic and pleasure-loving and not idealistic and sensitive. Maihar, as we all know, is a place of extreme climate and it becomes unbearably hot during the summer because of the limestone factories that surround it. Once, his son Ustad Ali Akbar Khan Sahib bought an air-cooler and took it to Maihar with the expectation that it might give him some relief. But after a few days it was rejected with scorn. Till the day he was unable to move, he would go to the market to buy daily necessities and not let the students go there and waste their valuable moments of practice. He was great in practicing austerity in his own life and had therefore the right to impose it on us. He was a disciplinarian and would never allow the slightest deviation from his ideals of simple living, strict observance of Bramhacharya during our stay at Maihar, a total withdrawal of the mind from all kinds of superficialities, directing all the energy to practice of music and concentration. In going to enforce all this he had to keep up a certain hardness which was, in reality, a show. Stories of Baba's severe scoldings, beating with the bow of violin and throwing of tabla hammer are so common that people are sometimes terribly mistaken to assume that he was a kind of an old village schoolmaster lacking in any sophistication, with only the ability to be rather ridiculously stern. But this image of himself he deliberately projected in order not to allow any liberty to the disciple. He always had the tension that soft treatment on his part would only spoil them. One day I heard him speaking out rather candidly, "Don't you see that I am a grandsire? Don't I feel like taking them (meaning his grandsons) in my arms—patting and loving them. But I am afraid it may spoil them." Here was the inner voice which could be heard seldom or never. Beneath the veil of toughness was the soft and tender soul bubbling with humanity. We used to watch with wonder how in different corners of his premises he arranged to set up wooden pieces of shelter-racks to let the birds build up their nests. At the time of his meals these birds would gather around him and he enjoyed their innocent company. Whenever any Sadhu or saint was around, Baba would give him God-like treatment, offering food and clothing. He used to clean with his own hand the left-overs of their food and never let us touch them.
I cannot resist the temptation to narrate a couple of episodes which reveal Baba's humanity. There was one woman who was mentally deranged and stayed near Baba's house. In the evening she would frequently visit Baba while he was engaged either in playing or teaching us. We even noticed that various herbal medicines were externally applied on her head to cool down her nervous system. This lady would keep her head on Baba's lap and while listening to music fell asleep. The stern teacher never felt disturbed but rather compassionately said "Ah, what a pity that she suffers so much! Let her have some rest at least!" Other than those who witnessed this scene, how can anybody recognize what he actually was!
Once in the market at Maihar he watched a person sitting out rather dejected in a corner with a number of dholaks to sell but not heeded by anyone. He was touched so much so that he took up one dholak and started playing. The result was obviously a crowd around him. Many of them were throwing coins and a few dholaks (folk drums) were sold out within a short time. Baba saw that some money were collected. He gave it all to the dholak-seller and went home happy.
About religion Baba was very broad-minded. When he used to have his daily prayer or Namaz he would ask me to go into my room and have my 'Gayatri' Yapa. Some of the habits and practices he suggested got so firmly riveted into my mind as 'mantras' or sermons. He would say, "Whenever you are giving a performance, meditate on your Guru first and then you will see that he takes you over and carries you through. Whenever you play a Raga, begin with worshipping and welcoming it. Imagine it to be deity. Bow down and pray that it should have mercy on you and it should become alive through your medium. Never approach a raga with a feeling of pride or vanity in your heart. Music grows out of the purest feelings of your soul and hence the mind of the musician, if only purified, can produce the vibration." Baba's behavior on the stage sometimes became rather erratic. But this was only the result of a certain tension and apprehension that he might fail to establish the raga. I saw him many times uttering Namaz and even crying out "Ma, Ma" to Goddess Saraswati. This appeared strange to people. But I had the most glorious experience to hear the same person playing sursringar to himself in Maihar with all the serenity and calm of mind. I still remember that after a couple of minutes it seemed too much for me. The emotional appeal was so tremendous that my entire being was gone to pieces, senses suspended and it was a trance all over. Anyone who heard him there could realize how great a Naad (Sound) Yogi he was.
There was a very old temple on top of a hill at Maihar known as the temple of Saradamai. Pilgrims came there from far and near and surprisingly enough they would come to see Baba straight from the temple. To the poor common people of Madhya Pradesh who knew nothing about music, Baba Allauddin Khan Sahib was sort of a Sadhu—a noble soul and they used to call him "Baba" in that sense. People of Maihar loved and honored him like anything excepting the Muslim community, who did not quite approve of his liberal views on religion. After his death they at first refused to carry him for burial. There was a storm of controversy. But at the end we saw that the burial procession was being attended by the Hindus and Muslims alike and even the chief priest of the temple of Saradamai joined. It was a marvelous spectacle! Baba can be compared to Sant Kabir whom both the Hindus and Muslims claimed to have belonged to their community. I would rather say that like Sant Kabir he was far above these social distinctions. He was a great Naad Yogi.