"This is as impressive of a local debut as I’ve heard this year, and you’re guaranteed to hear unprecedented sounds in Late Aster’s very cool collisions of brass instruments and electronics.” - SF Chronicle
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"Effortlessly converging a removed version of the classical, jazz, dream pop and analogue-sounding electronica, Late Aster, in a live and filmed setting, produce moving music with a spacey, ethereal hazy feel. I love this EP.” - Monolith Cocktail
"a true experimental masterpiece that defies boundaries” - Death or Desire
Cal Academy NightLife LIVE. Photo by Russell Mendoza.
Upcoming dates:
04/14 - San Francisco, CA @ KXSF 102.5 FM radio
Past dates:
08/11 - San Francisco, CA @ Cal Academy NightLife LIVE
09/29 – Oakland, CA @ Bandcamp Store [tickets] w/ SLUGish Ensemble
10/11 – Los Angeles, CA @ Resident DTLA [tickets] w/ Kidi Band & Elbows + Maralisa
11/19 – Brooklyn, NY @ The Owl Music Parlor [tickets] w/ SLUGish Ensemble
02/12 - Madison, WI @ Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music “Guest Artist Series”
Out September 29, 2023
Light Rail Session was recorded at Light Rail Studios in San Francisco, CA on June 9, 2023, including all of the effects on each instrument, from vocal delay to horn and trumpet filters to fuzz on the synthesizer. The EP offers an intimate listening of live performances and experimentation of colors and textures within the limits of two brass instruments, fx pedals, a drum machine/sampler, a Korg minilogue synthesizer, and a Moog subharmonicon.
In conjunction with each song the band will share video with footage of the live session filmed on hi-8 tape from a handheld video recorder by SF-based artist/photographer Deadeye Press. The final music videos were then created by filming that footage from a CRT at various remote locations around the country, in a surrealist twist on the live music video genre.
Release via Slow and Steady Records / Bright Shiny Things.
ABOUT
Situated somewhere between ambient electronic and chamber pop, San Francisco-based Late Aster’s music has been described as producing “unprecedented sounds” (SF Chronicle) that “on paper [] shouldn’t work, but it does.” (Tape-Op) Their two previous EPs “True and Toxic” (2021) and "Light Rail Session" (2023), articulate a kaleidoscopic theory of music grounded in the electronic processing of trumpet and French horn and supported by meticulous songwriting, instrumentation, and sound-sculpting.
The gesamtkunstwerk of two classically trained brass musicians/composers Aaron Messing and Anni Hochhalter, “Recall, Recall” (Late Aster’s debut LP) is an overflowing menagerie of sounds and melodies with injections of trumpet and French horn. Aaron Messing is a composer, arranger, producer, and trumpet player based in San Francisco and Anni Hochhalter is a founding member and French horn player of classical chamber ensemble WindSync, wind quintet. The record includes performances and production by Oktaven Audio recording engineer, Charles Mueller (guitar, editing, and mixing), Cameron LeCrone (drums), and is produced by Mark Yoshizumi (3db, Pitchfork Radio, Sonos Radio).
Say hello: music@lateaster.com
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