Late Aster
Late Aster
Late Aster is a San Francisco-based electronic duo consisting of trumpet player Aaron Messing and French horn player Anni Hochhalter — both vocalists, songwriters, and electronicists.
They named themself for the daisy-like perennial, whose name stems from the Ancient Greek word for star, Late Aster use electronics to amplify and distort their brass instruments, forming the skeletons of their songs: gossamer, enveloping beats and textures round out their idiosyncratic soundworld.
Since their formation in 2019, Late Aster has released one studio EP, 2021’s True and Toxic, and one live EP, 2023’s Light Rail Session. Their debut LP, City Livin’, is due later in 2025 via the San Francisco label Slow and Steady Records.
“I’ve always been interested in this idea of creating the coolest wallpaper you could think of,” Messing muses. “We’re like Daft Punk, if they were band nerds.” The equation has paid off: SF Chronicle called their sounds “unprecedented”; East Bay Express: “Late Aster is reinventing the way pop music is heard.” While Death or Desire said, “[They’re] ready to take you on a sonic journey like no other.”
Messing and Hochhalter are both classically trained; Messing studied Trumpet Performance at Northwestern University, and Hochhalter studied French Horn Performance at the University of Southern California.
Environmental attorney by day, synth and visualizer obsessive by night, Messing began solo, recording an EP of voice, piano, and trumpet with animated visual accompaniment; Hochhalter is a founding member of the Billboard Traditional Classical chart-topping wind quintet WindSync.
They met in 2013; both moved to San Francisco in 2019, the project convened, with drummer and percussionist Cameron LeCrone and Charles Mueller at Mt. Vernon’s Oktaven Audio as their guitarist, producer, and engineer. Mueller, who recently opened his own studio Tiny Panther Recording in Brooklyn, has worked with artists like composer Bill Brittelle, violinist Jennifer Koh, and Wilco drummer/percussionist Glenn Kotche.
Said 2021 debut, True and Toxic, released on Bright Shiny Things, was a collection of musical sketches that straddled composition and improvisation, analog and digital instrumentation — each song paired with visual accompaniment in the packaging. Therein, forms and melodies influenced by popular music pushed the boundaries between classical, jazz, pop, and rock.
Light Rail Session followed two years later via Slow & Steady Records — the product of a single studio date, all effects live. Overall, the four-songer displayed their might as a spontaneous, well-oiled unit at full bore.
The essence of the sound of City Livin’ lies in Late Aster’s embrace of a relatively simple, DIY-friendly recording device from the late ‘90s: the TASCAM Portastudio 414 MKII, which offers a lived-in, low-fidelity quality.
“I think it’s a really peaceful record,” Hochhalter relates, “because the cassette sound works like a white noise machine. It transports you, and cancels other sounds.”
City Livin’ kicks off with its title track, a Roland SYSTEM-8-powered instrumental feature redolent of a rainy night drive. Hochhalter calls the dream pop-influenced “Folsom” as “anthemic and perfectly made for this vintage medium.”
Another highlight is a cover of singer/songwriter great Gillian Welch’s “Look at Miss Ohio,” from her 2003 album Soul Journey. “We tried to preserve the raw, spontaneous qualities while recasting ‘Miss Ohio’ into this electronic world,” Hochhalter says.
And yet another is the speaker-knocking “Ctrl-F Discipline,” whose title nods to their beloved TASCAM’s four-track limit: “It’s a reference to the discipline of that model; it begins with a Tame Impala-inspired synth that is very recognizable.”
Overall, Hochhalter chalks up Late Aster as “an electronica duo, filtering brass instruments through dozens of effects pedals.” It’s the distinct personality they bring to the party — as well as a distinctly sticky way with songcraft — that makes that “wallpaper” truly sparkle.