China Aster

““Stuffed with pop hooks, ’80s synths, cut glass vocals and lyrical wit” Louder Than War

“instantly memorable…deeply melodic” The Most Radicalist

“Passionate and energetic…mixed with a strong contemporary touch and vision.” Acute Pop

London-via-Guernsey synth-pop revivalist China Aster - AKA Joshua Moore - today (9th April) shares rapturous new cut ‘Memories’.

Infusing the nostalgic textures of vintage British synth-pop, with the glossy dance productions of a Kylie Minogue or Grimes, ‘Memories’ serves up a propulsive and luxurious synthesis of euphoric keyboard-arrangements and elliptical lyricalism. Glued together by Moore’s passionate 80s-facing vocal, the track notably offers an abstract philosophical treatise on the potency of memory itself, as Moore himself explains:

“I think the song looks at how memory can both entrap and free us. Our past shapes our neurosis and its symptoms but recollection can also be a kind of escapology out of the vicious cycles of habit, which is alluded to by the lyric ‘My life is a cycle, I think I’m going to break’ - a double meaning here, as in breaking a cycle but also just breaking emotionally”

With the track’s DIY music video depicting Moore metal-detecting bits of scrap on the beaches of his native Guernsey, ‘Memories’ comes produced by band co-founder Oliver Marson - a solo artist in their own right - and mixed by Joshua Rumble (Black Country, New Road, Do Nothing, Fraulein, Anteros).

More about China Aster:

The brainchild of Joshua Moore and Oliver Marson, who formed the band in the Channel Island of Guernsey in 2011 as teens - and taking its botanical name from a book on the ‘Language of Flowers’ - Moore has since taken the songwriting reins, finally releasing the project’s debut single ‘If I Could Dance’ in 2022, with Marson remaining a close collaborator.

A graduate in fine-art and philosophy (studying under some of the same tutors as John Maus), Moore notably draws his songwriting concepts from the utopian writings of Karl Marx, Ernst Bloch and Nikolai Fyodorov, and of novelist Herman Melville - recent singles have tackled topics ranging from rationality, memory to toxic positivity. Self-described as “a campaign for lucid daydreaming”, China Aster’s music explores hope and optimism through notions of political action and science fiction, via the contemporary art-pop of John Maus, Kirin J Callahan, MGMT and Grimes, and via classic 80s artists The Style Council, Cocteau Twins and Ultravox.

The follow-up to last summer’s ‘Reason’, China Aster’s newest release - the first since relocating to East London in early 2024 - comes off the back of early press backing from the likes of Louder Than War (‘single of the month’), The Most Radicalist, Acute Pop, Wax Music, Post-Punk, RGM, BBC Introducing and Amazing Radio.