Asteroid Belt is Velvet Chain

Velvet Chain

Velvet Chain is a Los Angeles based band who play a mixture of trip-hop, rock, and pop, with a jazz/funk flavor. Velvet Chain was formed in the mid-1990s by Jeff Stacy and Erika Amato, the creative core of the band...

's 5th album. It was released in November 2003 under the Freak Records label. It is a mix between trip-hop/electronica and jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

. It has a very out of this world feel to it, with many references to outer space in song titles and lyrics, sci-fi style noises in the background, as well using pictures of celestial bodies

Astronomical object

Astronomical objects or celestial objects are naturally occurring physical entities, associations or structures that current science has demonstrated to exist in the observable universe. The term astronomical object is sometimes used interchangeably with astronomical body...

 in the liner notes. This theme fits in well with both the electronica style songs as well as the more laid back pieces.

Band members

• Erika Amato
  Erika Amato
  Erika Amato is an American singer and actress, and a founding member of the band Velvet Chain.-Biography:Amato was born in the town of Plainfield, New Jersey and grew up in the town of Summit. She started playing and performing music at the age of three...
  
   - vocals, percussion
  Percussion instrument
  A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
  
  , flute
  Flute
  The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
  
  s
• Jeff Stacy - bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  , synth, sample
  Sampling (music)
  In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
  
  s, computer
  Computer
  A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
  
  s
• Brian Reardon - guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  , guitar-synth
• Marc Antonio - Keyboard
  Keyboard instrument
  A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
  
  s
• Dan Wistrom - guitar
• Arif - guitar
• Jeff Mince - drum
  Drum
  The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
  
  s, loop
  Music loop
  In electroacoustic music, a loop is a repeating section of sound material. Short sections of material can be repeated to create ostinato patterns...
  
  s

Guest musicians

• David Garfield - piano
  Piano
  The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
  
   on tracks 3, 9, 10, 11 and 13. Piano and organ
  Organ (music)
  The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
  
   on track 7. Clav on tracks 4 and 8.
• Jerry Corbetta - organ on track 4.
• Jim Pash - gitsitar on tracks 3, 9 and 15.
• Paul Gonzalez - drums on track 16. Percussion on tracks 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 13. Co-engineer on track 16.
• Steve Stassi and Mike Rotondi - horn
  Horn (instrument)
  The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
  
  s on track 8.
• John Andrews - steel slide guitar on track 3.
• John Peters - alien
  Extraterrestrial life in popular culture
  In popular cultures, "extraterrestrials" are life forms — especially intelligent life forms— that are of extraterrestrial origin .-Historical ideas:-Pre-modern:...
  
   vocals on track 14.
• Kevin Dempsey - theremin
  Theremin
  The theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...
  
   on tracks 5, 7 and 14.
• Shari Rothman - concert harp
  Harp
  The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
  
   on tracks 7 and 9.
• Nolan Livesay - violin
  Violin
  The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
  
   and viola
  Viola
  The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
  
   on tracks 7 and 9.
• Neil Kramer - electric piano on track 1. Synth on track 5
• Steve Fister - electric guitar
  Electric guitar
  An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
  
   on track 5.
• Steven Dietrich - guitar, bass guitar, synth and programming on track 12.
• Jeremy Rublino - electric piano on tracks 3, 9 and 15. Live string section arrangements on tracks 7 and 9 with Jeff Stacy and Erika Amato.

Track listing

1. "King of the Moon" (Jeff Stacy, Erika Amato, Brian Reardon, Jeff Mince, Dan Wistrom, Marc Antonio) - 4:16
2. "Floating Away" (Stacy, Amato, Mince, Wistrom, B Reardom) - 3:51
3. "Sea of Tranquility" (Stacy, Amato, Wistrom, Mince, Antonio, B Reardon) - 5:45
4. "Green-Eyed Lady" (J Corbetta, J Phillips, D Reardon) - 3:15
   • This track is a cover of a Sugarloaf
     Sugarloaf (band)
     Sugarloaf was an American, Denver, Colorado based, rock and roll band in the 1970s, featuring Jerry Corbetta.Jerry Corbetta founded the band with guitarist Bob Webber of the Moonrakers; the other initial bandmembers were drummer Bob MacVittie on drums and rhythm guitarist Veeder Van Dorn III, also...
     
      song from 1970. Jerry Corbetta, one of the members of Sugarloaf, plays the organ in this song.
5. "Spectrum Analyzer" (Stacy, Mince, Antonio, N Kramer) - 2:23
6. "Limo" (Stacy, Amato) 3:46
7. "Other Side" (Stacy, Amato, B Reardon, S Josephs) - 4:28
8. "Cash" (Stacy) - 3:42
9. "I Spy" (Stacy, Amato) - 4:25
10. "Beat Box" (J Dudley, C Horn, S Jeczalik, M Langan, R Morley) - 1:01
    • This is a cover
      Cover version
      In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
      
       of a song by Art of Noise. It also appears on a tribute album entitled Abduction of the Art of Noise.
11. "Everyone Loves The Art of Noise" (Stacy, Amato) - 4:35
    • This track is also included on the Art of Noise tribute album Abduction of the Art of Noise.
12. "You Remind Me" (Stacy, S Dietrich) - 2:44
13. "Jazz Crashing" (Stacy, B Reardon, D Pippert) - 6:56
14. "General Eclectic" (Stacy, Mince, B Reardon, Antonio, Wistrom) - 3:23
15. "Meantime" (Stacy, Mince, B Reardon, A Hodzic, Wistrom) 2:31
16. "L'Anamour" ( Serge Gainsbourg) - 6:28