In the midst of the success of the TV series Stranger Things and it’s amazing soundtrack as well as, more importantly the new S U R V I V E album RR7349, much belated attention has recently turned to the artists and label behind Austin’s analog driven electronic synth scene that produced them. The vehicle that releases the labours of a diverse myriad of artists from that scene and beyond is Holodeck Records, the small label founded in 2012 by a disparate but like-minded group of individuals within it. And I’m actually embarrassed to say that I join in that belatedness, partly and with feeble caveat.
Last year, I was lucky enough to get a fleeting inside view when I visited Austin for the first time for Psychfest, an experience foreshadowed in San Francisco when I met extremely busy Holodeck Records co-founder Jonathan Slade (Silent Land Time Machine). At the time, he was managing a west coast tour for the Texas electronic duo BOAN (Mariana Saldana & Jose Cota) and Montreal’s Marie Davidson (whose new album we featured earlier this week) to highlight their Mentiras and Un Autre Voyage LP’s respectively. Our In Pictures feature of that show at The Knockout is on the old version of our blog here. At the time Indie30 promoted both releases heavily as well as Flatliner‘s excellent debut EP, Blasted Highway a couple of months later.
Jon remarked to me back then that I had pretty much been right inside the Holodeck centre during that short head spinning time. To be honest though, I really didn’t realise what I had stepped into and what I had left. Sadly, I took my eyes of the Holodeck ball once normal life resumed back here in Australia and as a result missed all three amazing full length records by Dylan Cameron, Samantha Glass and Troller the imprint released this year. To this end, to make up for my sinful omissions, Indie30 will be covering each release separately over the next three Thursday’s. The first of those is here.
James Stocker – 13 October, 2016.