Owner of Crystal Magic record label, Fraser Austin, felt embarrassed admitting to girls in high school what music he was listening to, when the answer was “the soundtrack to The Secret of Monkey Island”, which he’d ripped off a CD-Rom and dubbed to his Walkman.
Photo: Unknown
“I’d answer something totally dorky. Dorky, dorky dorky ... I was like, wait, maybe I need to go buy a Metallica CD or something.”
Now, the music Austin makes contains the same quirky video game-esque samples, with modern, progressive element in the production.
While working at Radiant Records in Timaru, Austin fell into his band by accident. After another touring band asked him to open for their set in Christchurch, he had to think quick. Within one week he was sorted: “The only thing I had at home, I’d been buying old computers from the dump store so I had a whole stack of Commodore 64s. I had one Casio keyboard as well.”
After a while there was a local consensus within the Christchurch music community to release music under one name. That’s how he made Crystal Magic the record label.
In 2010 the label released Golden Axe’s Fantasy Footwork. Chris Cudby from Golden Axe says, though the internet has to some extent rendered record labels an unneccessary and expensive middleman, “there’s something to be said about that curatorial role”, bringing together artists of a similar style.
Lucy Beeler or Lttle Phnx, also on Crystal Magic, explains: “I was making music on Garage Band just to give myself these limitations to work something really basic. ... I was just experimenting with I guess the idea of pop music and trying to make it as accessible as possible.
“I wanted it to be sincere but not cheesy.”
Luke Rowell a.k.a. Eyeliner calls the labels sound “Vaporwave”.
“If I hadn’t studied musicology I don’t think I would have been as interested in Vaporwave necessarily because as soon as I heard it, I was like this doesn’t appear to be necessarily for anyone.”
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