Hello friends,

Orange Tulip Conspiracy is back at it again with a full North American tour scheduled for this May. OTC features members of Secret Chiefs 3 and Estradasphere; including guitarist Jason Schimmel, longtime Estradasphere saxophone wizard John Whooley and madman drummer Lee Smith. Now with members from Seattle's avant music scene this group will melt your face off. For more information please visit orangetulipconspiracy.com.

Estradasphere's guitarist Jason Schimmel and drummer Lee Smith fuse with ex-estradasphere saxophonist John Whooley to form Orange Tulip Conspiracy, also featuring bay-area bassist Dan Robbins and seattle guitarist Zach Cline. OTC will hit the road on Nov 15 in support of their debut album on Mimicry Records.

Check the tour dates!

God of Shamisen, featuring Estradasphere collaborator and Tsugaru-Shamisen master Kevin Kmetz, as well as Estradasphere drummer Lee Smith, will be touring the west coast USA next month, celebrating the release of their debut CD Dragon String Attack on Reptile Records!

Anyone nearby, we'd love to see you!

Five years in the making, Orange Tulip Conspiracy is finally here. A band that Jason Schimmel (Estradasphere, Secret Chiefs 3) formed and has been composing and producing for with the help of over a dozen amazing musicians from the L.A., Bay Area and Seattle music scenes. The album is being released and distributed through Web of Mimicry and is available right now. Please check out Orange Tulip Conspiracy’s self- titled debut album featuring heavily produced tracks and densely packed orchestrations. Taking the listener on a journey through an extremely eclectic musical mind Orange Tulip Conspiracy is a must have release of 2008.

The post-Palace of Mirrors psychic explosion that Estradasphere has endured is frying all manners of new synapses...

While the band as a whole will maintain a low profile for the next several months (during bass player/producer Tim Smolens' adaptation to fatherhood), there will be ample opportunity throughout the US and Europe to see smaller-format versions of Estradasphere featuring various combinations of the members, as well as the members' other current projects, including Timb and Jason's outings with the Secret Chiefs 3, Jason's upcoming solo project Orange Tulip Conspiracy , and Timb's new trio with Gyan Riley and Scott Amendola.

PRESS RELEASE

Estradasphere is officially launching a brand new version of their online storeLOBEFOOD. Many years in the making, the plans are now seeing their first glimpses of material realization. Bass/producer guy Tim Smolens says, "We have always sought a way to release the stuff that fell between the cracks of our major album and movie releases."

In addition to a sacred Northwest migratory corporate merger i-collusion (old Chummery handoff of the burning torch) with experimental ethnomusicology label Sublime Frequencies, and a strong alliance with the SC3/Mimicry camp, as well as Amanda Palmer, Estradasphere's got too much going on these days.

LOBEFOOD exists primarily as an umbrella for our particular musical affiliations. It also allows us to release products that don't exist in the normal business avenues, while simultaneously helping to chip away at the $20K debt we've amassed making the Palace DVD! Everyone wins.

Click on "Store" above to see the enticing LOBEFOOD EXCLUSIVE offerings

Estradasphere has been producing songs for, and playing as the backup band for Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls. They recently played a series of sold out shows at Estradasphere's new Seattle space.
Show Review
Another Review
Another great review
awesome pics from the shows with Amanda here
And more pics here

From Amanda Palmer:
"I am excpetionally proud to announce that i'll be working on a number of collaborations with Estradasphere. The band and I just holed up in Seattle for a marathon of rehearsals and recordings that made everybody very, very excited. We played three private shows in the new seattle space at 608, using lots of the space to make fun live video feeds that projected on the wall of the space (songs from the bathtub! songs from the bedroom! many pianos being played simultaneously from a room far far away!). Chip took mad footage and we are sorting through and will hopefully start posting the results soon. Everyone is hard at work mixing through the recordings we did at Litho and in the space, no set plan on how this stuff will come out but when it does come out it will come out with a large loud BANGING gasp. We're setting our sights on a spring co-headlining tour of the states with Secret Chiefs 3, with all three bands merging logistical setups (Amanda, SC3, and Estradasphere), with some dates on the east coast and west coast in february for just me, estradasphere, and accordion-slayer jason webley. All full circle. it was jason i was with when I stumbled upon the fine gentlemen of estradasphere last spring after a falafel dinner and had my mind fairly blown away by their incredible music. more soon" - Amanda Palmer

The boys and Amanda will be playing another round of shows together in the PacNW this February, check back for tour dates as they come in!

Jason Schimmel, Timb Harris, Tim Smolens, and Adam Stacey recently recorded John Zorn Masada compositions arranged and produced by the Secret Chiefs 3 entitled, "Xaphan: Book of Angels volume 9," coming this spring.

preview of the Tzadik album

Happy New of Year
Estradasphere members Timb Harris, Jason Schimmel, and Tim Smolens have just returned from their fist European tour as a trio. The tour was a wonderful success and we thank everyone who helped us out. We played shows in France, The Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. Timb and Jason also played with the Secret Chiefs 3 for John Zorn's Masada and Cobra in Milano, Italy.

There are some nice clips that fans have put on you tube....
South France
Lamego, Portugal
Lamego City Hall, Portugal - a speech from the mayor likening the globe-trotting tendencies of our music with their beloved port wine export!

A stripped down Estradasphere trio starving/backpacking/musical debauchery tour with Timb Harris, Jason Schimmel, and Tim Smolens, will be from November 22nd through December 9th. Timb and Jason are playing at the John Zorn Masada festival in Milan, Italy on Nov. 23rd where they will be performing with both Secret Chiefs 3 and Zorn's Cobra. We are hoping to play many gigs in any venue (clubs, coffee shops, house parties, street corners) Also we are traveling so light if anyone can lend us an Upright bass for any amount of time that would be great. And if anyone has an extra guitar amp Jason would smile. Please email all booking offers of any type to: laurel@silverleafbooking.com Any other inquiries, please contact us at: info@estradasphere.com Thank you all. See you soon.