Biography

Astrocolor are 3-time nominees at the Western Canadian Music Awards, including winning Instrumental Artist of the Year in 2022. The band’s catalogue has over 15 million streams on the major platforms, national airplay in Canada from flagship CBC shows including Afterdark and Saturday Night Jazz, as well as support from notable US stations including KCRW in Los Angeles. Astrocolor reached #1 on the national Earshot jazz chart in Canada in 2023 with previous album Moonlighting – AstroJazz Vol. 1. The band’s dynamic live show has brought them to notable festivals including Bass Coast, Burning Man, Shambhala, Rifflandia, Laketown Shakedown, and the Victoria International Jazz Festival.

While Moonlighting – AstroJazz Vol. 1 imagined an exploratory voyage into deep space, the new album Stargazing – AstroJazz Vol. 2 starts from a vantage point on planet earth, looking both outwards to the stars and inwards towards the self. Floating somewhere between reality and hallucination, Stargazing explores the nexus between experimental jazz and instrumental psychedelia. Imagine if Miles Davis reinvented the likes of a modern Four Tet or Bonobo album; deep moody grooves with a rich, organic palette of live instruments. This is a uniquely introspective soundtrack that opens the doors of perception one instrumental layer at a time.

Stargazing is Astrocolor’s 6th studio album. It was produced by Neil James Cooke-Dallin at Burning Rainbow Studio as the 2nd volume in the AstroJazz series, which the band started with Executive Producer Steve Christensen, best known as Khruangbin’s longtime studio collaborator. 

Press

"Super cool.” –All About Jazz

"Take an imaginary cosmic journey into deep space with Canadian instrumental band Astrocolor....A dizzying blend of jazz, psychedelia, and electronics." –KCRW

"It’s no surprise that Astrocolor are picking up awards...thanks to their inimitable and exciting vision that truly rewrites the notion of what jazz should sound like via nods to ‘90s electronic music and cosmic adventurousness.” –Take Effect

"Spacey, dubby, jazzy background/foreground music." –The Sunday Times (UK)

“Astrocolor hone the niche art of melding '60s lounge music, Balearic beat and electronica in an alchemy that shouldn't theoretically gel – yet they pull it off with prowess and panache. Genre fluidity defines their sonic ethos.” –Exclaim

"Keening synths, jazz soundscapes and more reverb than is strictly decent. Beard-strokingly cool.” –UNCUT (UK)

“Astrocolor are totally versed in the finer points of funky and jazzy house, the live ambient and Vienna school of electrobeats…straight out of Bristol in the 1990s with Hacienda Club love spilling off every pulse. The kind of moody sounds that contemporary jazz festivals love to book.” –Vancouver Sun

“Like the dusty record that crackles on an old turntable, Paradise feels both classic and glamorous. Between the blinking, Rat Pack piano melody and harmonic backing vocals, Astrocolor have crafted an idyllic illusion of poolside refuge." –CBC Music