Intergalatic Pop

Deastro

Twenty-two-year-old Randolph Chabot first began writing songs when he was a pre-teen, in an attempt to construct the sounds of his dreams. Superheroes, lost souls, star-crossed lovers and aliens all inhabit his fantasies, so naturally his stagename creates a kind of alter ego for his performances. Famously flamboyant on stage, Deastro’s colourful, ambient, avantguarde pop symphonies come to life with his emotions and endless energy. You may recognise his song ‘Parallelograms’ from bnet radio, and the more recent ‘Vermillion Plaza’ and ‘Toxic Crusaders’ are both criminally catchy. Those sonic booms on his recordings are actually fireworks. “Of course everyone’s hanging out, and I’m nerding out with headphones and a field recorder on the fourth of July,” Chabot said of it in an interview.

Deastro’s dreamy pop sounds like an interstellar collision, like Bright Eyes meets The Radio Dept., The Postal Service or Phoenix. It’s mostly constructed with synth but it sounds like there are conventional instruments in there at times. Switching between bouncy subterranean pop, atmospheric dream folk and synthetic dance shoegaze, Deastro’s sound is vast, daring and really pretty.

By the time Chabot was 17 he purportedly had hundreds of songs but didn’t like any of them. Then one day while praying and says he heard a “space symphony”. “It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. That initial sound has never left me. It’s always there, giving me enough hope to write.” Chabot has self-released a myriad of records with his own hand drawn covers and soon gained attention from creative label Ghostly International. His latest album, Moondagger, came out in June, and he’s doing a UK tour in September to celebrate.

This ‘day in the life’ video diary directed by James P. Morse is how I first found out about Deastro. Watch below to get a glimpse into Chabot’s character and sparkling personality. P.S. I would have put up his song ‘Daniel Johnston Was Stabbed in the Heart with the Moondagger by the King of Darkness and His Ghost Is Writing this Song as a Warning to All of Us’ just on the name alone, but I couldn’t find it.