Ajna Chakra
Boston psychedelic heavy trio of the 1990s — hundreds of gigs, 7-inches, cassettes, ~100 songs — reignited on American Record with archival and new transmissions.
Biography
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.
Era History
- 1991The 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.
- 2021Coal (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.
- 2024Our 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.
- 2025Camouflage 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.
Canonical Catalog
| Title | Year | Format | First pressed via | Tracks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coal | 2021 | LP | American Record | 4 |
| Braincore | 2021 | LP | American Record | 11 |
| Our Recorded Future | 2024 | LP | 9 | |
| Camouflage Our Silhouettes | 2025 | LP | 12 |
Press, On the Record
“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 · Mike Vitali interview (Klemen Breznikar) · verified at psychedelicbabymag.com
“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
Photography
Contact
LabelAmerican Record Company · Albany, New York
Press & Booking Deskdemos@amrecordcompany.com
Streamingpennyhq.com
Vinyl & Merch3313rpm.com