Astronautalis

“Indie-country-electro” rapper Astronautalis has shared the stage with everyone from A Tribe Called Quest to The Polyphonic Spree to Rancid, which indicates both how seamlessly he blends his roots-rock, IDM, and hip-hop influences and how schizophrenic the resulting songs are. The 2008 album Pomegranate muddied up the quest to define the sound even further, delving into American Gothic sounds like sawing fiddles and penny-opera pianos to create an appropriately rustic background for Astronautalis’ breathless run through historical fiction tales about con men, stowaways, heretics, and the Battle Of Trenton. He followed that with 2011’s This Is Our Science, which includes collaborations with Sims of Doomtree and Tegan Quin of Tegan And Sara.

Updated 02/16/2012