Ajna ChakraOrganic

Ajna Chakra is named for the third-eye chakra, and the band has always operated like one — perceiving more than it publishes. This was Mike Vitali's main band of the 1990s: a trio of NYC musicians who met in Boston while Vitali attended Berklee, then played hundreds of shows, cut 7-inch singles and cassette releases, and built a catalog of nearly a hundred songs plus countless improvisations, all of it live, analog, and in the room. It was in this band that Vitali first drew up plans to start his own label — the idea that eventually became Magnetic Eye Records and, later, American Record Company. The trio — Vitali, Ryan Bell, and Chris Jones — burned through the Boston circuit while the wider world stayed offline; the deep archive is physical because the era was. The surfacing began in 2021, when American Record issued 'Coal' (AMRC002) and 'Braincore' — 1990s recordings engineered by Vitali in Boston, analog, in a studio, live to tape, with Ryan Bell's playing preserved exactly as he left it. Then the band did something archives are not supposed to do: it started transmitting again. 'Our Recorded Future' (December 2024) and 'Camouflage Our Silhouettes' (January 2025) are new Ajna Chakra — twenty-one tracks of psychedelic heavy that treat the 1990s catalog as a launch pad, not a museum. Superflares, anti-gravity, messages from time: the third eye is open and the tape is rolling.

The history and the records, pressed into one column — read it, hear it, own it, in the order it happened.

1991Boston years

The etheric foundation

Formed in the early 1990s while Vitali was at Berklee — three NYC musicians colliding in Boston. Hundreds of gigs, 7-inch singles, cassettes, nearly 100 songs, and the first sketches of the label idea that became Magnetic Eye and American Record. Pre-digital — the deep archive is physical.

2021Archive surfaces

Coal (AMRC002)

Archival 1990s recordings released April 30, 2021 on American Record — analog, in a studio, live to tape, engineered by Vitali in Boston. 'Braincore' follows the same day: eleven tracks of the 90s trio, with Ryan Bell's playing preserved on the record.

Buy Digital · $8.99+

Coal2021

LP · American Record · 2021-04-30 · 4 tracks

AMRC002 — where the archive first cracked open. Four tracks from the 1990s Boston sessions, engineered by Mike Vitali, analog, in a studio, live to tape: 'Felonious Punk,' 'Great White Police Car,' 'Coal,' 'Zoo York City' — titles that carry the NYC-kids-in-Boston geography of the band inside them. Credits: Mike Vitali, Ryan Bell (RIP), Chris Jones. Nothing here was reconstructed; the tape sounds like the room it was cut in, and releasing it a quarter-century later required only the will to press play.

First pressed via American Record, 2021

Buy Digital · $8.99+

Braincore2021

LP · American Record · 2021-04-30 · 11 tracks

The companion vault release to 'Coal,' issued the same day — eleven tracks that show the trio's full range, from the 52-second 'Creatures' to the six-minute 'Blue Rex.' 'Satori' and 'Defying Augury' bookmark the band's twin poles: sudden illumination and refusing the omen. Engineered by Mike Vitali in Boston; credits Mike Vitali, Ryan Bell (RIP), Chris Jones. Live to tape, and the improviser's logic is audible — these are performances, not productions.

First pressed via American Record, 2021

“Really Ajna Chakra was my main band during the 90s when I'd lived in Boston & after hundreds of gigs, a few 7"s, cassette releases & a catalog of nearly 100 songs & countless live & recorded improvisations later AC will stay a pre-digital phenomenon.” It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine · 2012 · verified at psychedelicbabymag.com

2024Revival

Our Recorded Future

'Our Recorded Future' released December 18, 2024 — nine new tracks, the first fresh Ajna Chakra transmission of the American Record era. The title is the thesis: the band's future gets recorded now.

Buy Digital · $8.99+

Our Recorded Future2024

LP · 2024-12-18 · 9 tracks

Released December 18, 2024 on American Record (Albany, NY) — the record that turned Ajna Chakra from an archive back into a band. Nine tracks that read like a transmission log: 'Superflares,' 'Tides,' 'Time Out of Mind,' 'Geometria,' and the paranoid centerpiece 'I Know Someone is Following Us.' The title track opens the set with the band's new charter — the future, recorded — and 'QHT' closes it in code. Twenty-five years after the Boston basements, the third eye blinks back on.

2025Revival

Camouflage Our Silhouettes

'Camouflage Our Silhouettes' released January 9, 2025 — twelve tracks three weeks after the last album, closing with a redux of 'Everything I Know.' Two records in twenty-two days from a band that spent two decades officially silent.

• Mike VitaliMember · guitar, vocals
• Ryan Bell (RIP)Member · credited on Coal and Braincore
• Chris JonesMember · credited on Coal and Braincore

“I played with the idea of starting my own label back in the early 1990s when I formed Ajna Chakra however I was still in Berklee and gigging a lot with Ajna Chakra so I never made the time.” The Sludgelord · 2014 · Interview with Mike Vitali from Magnetic Eye Records and Ironweed · verified at thesludgelord.blogspot.com

“He attended Berklee School of Music in the '90s and founded the band Ajna Chakra during his time in Boston.” The Collaborative · 2017 · Local label Magnetic Eye is the past and future of stoner and doom rock · verified at collaborativemagazine.org

The catalog streams right here — one stream, one penny, straight to the artist vault.

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