Austin is of course a particularly musical town, but often there can be a divide between artists and regular citizens. So KUT and the Austin Music Map came up with Austin Remixed, a project that sought submissions of Austin sounds from the community, and any sound was welcome: we received grackles, jackhammers, heartbeats, F1 cars racing down the track. We then handed these sounds over to seven local artists to turn these sounds into music. The resulting songs were astounding and a lot of fun, especially when heard in the live setting last month at the ND.
One of the highlights was Roger Sellers‘ performance. Sellers has a stellar resume even at the young age of 24. Over the course of two self-produced and self-released albums, he’s explored the intersection of pop, folk, and electronica, building mini-symphonies with a variety of loops. He plays all the instruments himself, from guitar and banjo to piano and drums, yet through inspired production techniques, the sounds come out slightly askew. On 2011’s Moments, Sellers crafted a suite of songs that live up to the title: snapshots of musical memories, but when taken together, they add up to something that’s both intimate and joyous.
Not surprisingly, Sellers did wonders with the community sounds in the Austin Remixed project. “Sincere” boasts a number of recognizable local identifiers, yet they’re seamlessly blended into a song that’s bigger than the sum of its parts. At the Remixed show, Sellers ably shifted between the various loops and built the song piece-by-piece. Fittingly enough, the performance and the song perfectly tapped into the close-knit musical community that calls Austin home.
