The Azusa Plane was the psychedelic music

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...

 recording and performance project of Jason DiEmilio (1970 – 2006) of Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania

Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania

Clifton Heights is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, six miles west of downtown Philadelphia and on Darby Creek. The population was at 2,330 in 1900, and 3,155 in 1910...

. Performing almost exclusively on a Fender guitar and usually through echo effects, DiEmilio released three full-length studio efforts, a live disc, several EPs and a large number of singles, compilation contributions and split releases between the years 1995 and 2001.

After releasing a cassette on the Shrimper Records

Shrimper Records

Shrimper Records is an independent record label based in Upland, California. It was founded in 1990 by Dennis Callaci.-Bands:* Ah Bus* Amps for Christ* The Aum Rifle* The Babies* Bingo Trappers* Bugskull* Joey Burns * The Bux...

 label (mainly known for bedroom recordings by songwriters like The Mountain Goats

The Mountain Goats

The Mountain Goats is an American indie rock band formed in Claremont, CA by singer-songwriter John Darnielle. For many years, the sole member of the Mountain Goats was Darnielle himself, despite the plural moniker....

, Sentridoh and others) and a self-released single in 1995, both deeply indebted to the lo-fi drone-rock of Spacemen 3

Spacemen 3

Spacemen 3 were an English alternative rock band, formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Peter Kember and Jason Pierce. Their music was "colorfully mind-altering, but not in the sense of the acid rock of the '60s; instead, the band developed its own minimalistic psychedelia"...

 and the Xpressway

Xpressway

Xpressway was a record label founded by New Zealand musician Bruce Russell in Dunedin in 1988. Until it ceased in 1993, Xpressway released a variety of New Zealand musicians, primarily on cassette, but its catalogue included several 7" singles and one 12" EP....

 label, DiEmilio embarked on a never-completed series of ten split-singles of his own work with that of another like-minded musicians, like guitarists Loren Mazzacane Connors

Loren Mazzacane Connors

Loren MazzaCane Connors is an American experimental musician who has recorded and performed under several different names: Guitar Roberts, Loren Mazzacane, Loren Mattei, and currently Loren Connors...

 and Roy Montgomery

Roy Montgomery

Roy Montgomery is a guitarist from Christchurch, New Zealand.He has played in several New Zealand bands, including Compulsory Fun, Murder Strikes Pink, The Pin Group, The Shallows, Dadamah and Dissolve...

, on his own Colorful Clouds for Acoustics label. His first full-length release, 1997's Tycho Anomaly and the Full Consciousness of Hidden Harmony, released by the Australian Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura (record label)

Camera Obscura was a record label founded by Australian music journalist Tony Dale in 1996. Described by Dale as 'a conduit for the release of contemporary acid-folk, psych-pop and space-rock,' the label put out almost ninety releases over fourteen years, the vast majority of which were...

 label, was highly regarded for its four extended tracks of drifting, multi-tracked guitar drone and gave birth to a spate of lesser releases and live appearances by a trio formed by DiEmilio with guitarist Jason Knight and drummer Quentin Stolzfus (later of the pop group Mazarin, with whom DiEmilio performed for a short time) who were, at the time, esteemed contemporaries of Philadelphia natives Bardo Pond

Bardo Pond

Bardo Pond are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1991, and who are currently signed to London based label Fire Records. The current members are Michael Gibbons , John Gibbons , Isobel Sollenberger , Clint Takeda , Jason Kourkonis , and Aaron Igler...

 as well as Windy and Carl and Flying Saucer Attack

Flying Saucer Attack

Flying Saucer Attack was an experimental space rock band that formed in Bristol, England in 1992. David Pearce was the core member of the group, and Rachel Brook was a member for most of the band's lifetime....

. A live CD titled The Result Dies With the Worker resulted from these shows.

His second full-length, a double-CD released a year after Tycho Anomaly and titled America is Dreaming of Universal String Theory, was a tumultuous, sprawling and despairing set of tracks which were closer to noise music

Noise music

Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...

 than the drifting ambient music

Ambient music

Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...

 of Tycho Anomaly. Few of his initial fans stuck by him for his 2001 swan song The Highway's Jammed With Broken Heroes, released by the Belgian K-raa-k label, consisting of two grim tracks of seemingly malfunctioning equipment and digital noise.

Between major releases, DiEmilio issued dozens of tracks, most of them recorded quickly and titled for personal obsession ("The United States Investment in Foreign Countries," was one "For Claudia Cardinale," in tribute to a 60s Italian sex goddess was another, while other paid tribute to his musical heroes like the Velvet Underground, the Smiths

The Smiths

The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...

, Belle and Sebastian, and Wayne Rogers

Wayne Rogers

William Wayne McMillan Rogers III is an American film and television actor, best known for playing the role of 'Trapper John' McIntyre in the U.S...

 of Crystalized Movements

Crystalized Movements

Crystalized Movements were a psychedelic rock/punk/folk band who recorded and performed sporatically from 1980-1993. The band was formed by Wayne Rogers and Ed Boyden in Tolland, CT when they were high school freshmen.-History:...

 and numerous other psychedelic bands on his own Twisted Village imprint). He also released CDs on Colorful Clouds by musicians Tranquil, Omit, K-Group, Michael J. Schumacher and Ian Nagoski and another, never clearly defined project, the Spires of Oxford and founded the Victoria imprint which released one disc, the debut by Mazarin, and co-founded the Dance Chromatic imprint which also saw only one eponymous art-gabber

Gabber

Gabber , is a style of electronic music and a subgenre of hardcore techno. "Gabber" is a slang word of Yiddish origin that means "mate", "buddy" or "friend"....

 release.

On November 1, 2006, DiEmilio's suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 was reported by Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...

. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/news/The_Azusa_Planes_Jason_DiEmilio_Passes_Away#39476

Selected discography

• Fall/Meander (Colorful Clouds for Acoustics),7" 1996
• Two Projects to Harness The Surge of the Tides (Astro Lanes/Colorful Clouds for Acoustics), 7" 1997
• Resonating Subtleties (Shrimper), cass 1995
• Tycho-Magnetic Anomaly and the Full Consciousness of Hidden Harmony (Camera Obscura), CD 1997
• Jacques Offenbach's Opera Efforts EP (Amish), 12" EP 1998
• America Is Dreaming of Universal String Theory (Colorful Clouds for Acoustics), 2CD 1998
• Result Dies With the Worker (Colorful Clouds for Acoustics / Little Army), CD 1999
• Cheltenham EP10 (Ochre), 10" EP 2001
• Spires of Oxford/Alphane Moon/Our Glassie Azoth Compilation 7(Oggum Records) Tracks - 1. The Spires Of Oxford "From The Inscription on The Tomb Of The Duchess Of Newcastle in WestMinster Abbey"
• The Highway's Jammed With Broken Heroes (K-raa-k 3), CD 2001