16/01/2026
🙏
Where is the new Astrix music?
Next month it will be exactly 10 years since my last album "He.art" was released. (Time flies way too fast!).
I know a lot of you are very eager to know when the next album is coming. People ask me wherever I play, people ask on social media. So here is an update that will let you enter a little bit into my creative world. It is a long text, but because I don't really like to video myself I don't share much from the studio and I feel I owe it to those who follow my music to share more of my world and my studio.
If you have been following me for a while now, you know that I work very hard on my music. I don't do instant tracks, I just can't. I didn't work like that when I just started, and I sure do not work like that now, after so many years. The process of creating art is something that is very important to me. I need to clear my mind, get away from the day to day activities and life, get myself into the right state of mind and really embed myself in the creative process. Even once the basis for the music is there in front of me there is a very long process till I am happy with it and feel ready to release it.
This is even more complex because I still believe in creating albums, a real journey for the listener, a whole creation that tells a story. And for me this means that the parts of the story need to be there in front of me first, and only then I can start weaving them together and they all take shape, individually and as part of the whole tale. This involves the music, the cover, the videos, the whole concept. I work on all of it in parallel. I can be very happy with a track, but once it takes its place as a chapter in the full tale, it suddenly looks different to me and I can change it completely.
That is why my albums always take years to create, and why I do not release a lot of music in between.
As part of this process I also don't release everything I write. In fact, I release very little of what I write. The same as amazing and much more talented artists than yours truly, like Prince or Tame Impala or Kraftwerk always released very little of what they actually recorded. In fact, those of you who follow me, know that after He.art was released I immediately started work on the next album, I even had tracks for a full album, but I wasn't happy with the outcome and the direction it was taking and just scratched all of it and decided to start afresh. To this day I still get requests from people to release tracks I played 20 years ago in my sets, but never released (and never will... sorry hehe). For me those "unreleased" tracks are not a tragedy. If you want, it's the sawdust on the floor of a carpenter's shop. It was necessary to make the furniture, but the carpenter does not sell the sawdust.
This was always my process. But in this album things got even more complex. The years that passed since the release of my last album "He.art" brought a lot of changes to my life.
First, I started touring and playing even more than before. The amount of time I spend in airports around the world, in planes and in soul-less hotels is ridiculous. Sometimes I lose all feeling of where I am in time and space.
Second, and most important, a huge change in my life was bringing three children into our world. They are now 10, 6 & 1 years old. I know it might sound cliche, but I can't even start to explain how important they are in my reality and how important it is for me to spend time with them, especially now, when they are young.The responsibility for the life of a human that is in your hands is enormous. And it is also such great fun :-)
Third, I embarked on a new journey, creating Shamanic Tales Records, a home for all my music and for other artists to share their art. It started as something small, but somehow developed a life of its own and grew and blossomed much more than I expected.
All these things together mean one very painful thing for me: much less studio time. A typical week can look like this: Thursday/Friday flying transatlantic and taking care of the label and other office stuff during the flight, playing 2-4 gigs in the weekend, sometimes with domestic flights included, flying transatlantic back home (hopefully sleeping), returning on Monday/Tuesday, spending Tuesday-Thursday with my kids and doing everyday life things, and then the circle starts again. If I have a domestic gig, then I have more time during the week, and if I'm lucky I can find two consecutive days in the studio. But then by the time I immerse myself in the music, It's time to leave again.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining about my life, I feel lucky and privileged to do what I do, I can't see myself doing anything else, and it is so rewarding to be able to play music to people. But this really took some adjusting to and wrought havoc on my creative process.
On top of all that came the pandemic, which changed the whole world and had a huge impact on our Psytrance community. At first I thought it would at least be positive because I will finally have proper studio time. But then I found out that beyond the negative effect it had on us all and our mood, for me personally being cut away from dancefloors and our Psytrance community really hurt my inspiration. It was suddenly clear to me how important being out there and experiencing the ceremony that happens on the dancefloor is to my creative process, and how much of a driving force it is for me to rush into the studio and make music. That is why Moonclipse was born. A fun project that was born for the studio only with a good friend, a place to channel creative energies into, without the commitment that I feel when I create Astrix music.
But for the whole time the process of creating the album hasn't stopped. I'm in a stage where the whole story is very much layed out in front of me. All the tracks and the cover are taking shape. I have 26 tracks on the board, they are all going through the mixing stage, and then I will make the hard choices and cut it all down to the final album order. Then check the story again, and knowing myself, there will be more changes and fine tuning. And then it's final mixing and mastering. This period is for me the most stressful time. I have so many doubts: Is it good enough? Is it interesting enough? Does the story hold? Did I manage to bring something new? Knowing the expectations out there, especially after such a long time, doesn't help. You know, sometimes I listen to the tracks after an all night mixing session in my studio, and feel like it is just horrible and I don't know what I have been doing the last few years. Moments like these are really soul crushing. But I've already learnt that I just need to go to sleep and listen with fresh ears when I wake up, as it was like this when I made my previous albums. Still it is a very difficult and almost agonizing process. I'm sure every artist knows what I am talking about.
Anyway, how much longer? I can't say exactly. But I'm pretty much sure that 2026 will see the release of a new Astrix album, FINALLY! I hope that you will endure the wait with me and that you will feel it was worth it.
I want to take the opportunity and thank you again for all your support through the years, it plays such an important role in why and how I do what I do. 🙏💗
