LATE ASTER | THE CAROLINIAN - FEATURE
For Late Aster, Creation is Music
by Anabel Rattray
October 2023
Late Aster’s new EP, Light Rail Sessions, offers a unique perspective on artistic creation. I was fortunate to discuss their new release, inspirations, and creative process with the artists. The group’s sound evolves across each track through the EP, creating a self-described “kaleidoscopic effect” for the listener. Their debut EP, True and Toxic, aimed to display their “meticulous” and precise vision for what Late Aster is, what it can be, and what the group can produce. Their new EP, recorded in a single day at Light Rail Studios in San Francisco, California, aims to communicate their inspiration from creating in the moment and their connection with their sound. They describe their new release as intimate; I would describe it as sincere.
Late Aster’s most significant contribution to music is the power of possibility. Aaron Messing and Anni Hochhlater, the band’s two members, are classically trained brass musicians.
When discussing their background, I asked how much their past training helped them or whether it had been limiting. They both agreed on the helpfulness. Anni described her classical training as lending a “depth of imagination” to constructing sound concepts. “The range of colors that we…imagine in our [music] is just so many, and it’s an orchestral palette. So, adding electronics is like a whole other palette that’s really interesting to explore,” she said.
Late Aster’s musical background contributes to the group’s emotional intentions. Their website lists their sound as a mixture of “jazztronica, ambient electronic, and chamber pop,” a factor that they feel utilizes innovation as a means of connecting with the listener. Their sound is a “cool, intimate jazz feel…being run through electronics,” Hochhlater described. That theme runs throughout their new album, including the track “It Never Entered My Mind,” a jazz standard that Messing listened to throughout his childhood. The soft vocals of Hochhlater and Messing come through the hyper-techno elements and horn lines. Their collaboration shows their influences and how their art can diverge from their past while remaining true to their musical intentions.
After Hochlater and Messing described the album as an exercise of “dreaming into reality,” the core concept became more apparent. The improvised nature of recording in a single day as a series of single takes lends an almost reckless antithesis to the musicians’ classical backgrounds and pushes the subconscious to the foreground of creation.
In terms of concrete messages and thematic intentions, the group hopes to promote more of their environmental activism. Messing, in particular, wants to address specific instances of calls for environmental justice, an association the band considers essential to the purpose of their music and as a continuation of countless artists’ close associations with activist efforts. “We can try to communicate something…tangible about the way the world works. Music is a good emotional communicator,” Messing describes. Hochhlater adds that nature influences the group’s process, particularly with Light Rail Sessions, and was “an inspiration for a lot of the visuals.” Connecting to the beauty of our world grants a universal quality to the groups’ musicality.
The group agrees that authenticity is critical for college artists seeking their niche.
“Becoming a better artist is…reflecting on the way things happen in your life,” Messing describes, which leads to “a more authentic version of you.” Hochhlater adds, “If you’re interested in trying to create something eventually,” cover songs are a great place to start. While playing other people’s songs, “taking creative liberties…can be a real learning experience” and help you “see your reflection in someone else’s work.” If you’re like Late Aster, that reflection will be an evocative and avant-garde one that challenges conceptions of the classical music major.
The EP Light Rail Sessions dropped on Sept. 29 from a shared effort between independent labels Slow and Steady Records and Bright Shiny Thing. The first single and video, “Ripple,” and another song, “Safety Second,” were released for early viewing. The group has also announced live dates in Oakland, Los Angeles, and New York City.