Total Stasis Mix For The Astral Plane

We decided to put a spotlight on our favorite artists from our home city of Los Angeles this Summer. Over the coming 10 weeks, we’ll feature a cross section of what the city has to offer. Far from a selection of the biggest touring entities, we hope to shine light on the individuals who brighten the airwaves and nights out on a regular basis.

Total Stasis isn’t exactly a Los Angeles staple having only recently relocated from Montreal, but the label has made quick work in enmeshing itself in the city’s loose sonic patchwork. Opting for a taciturn approach to public facing communication, Total Stasis has let out a slow trickle of releases over the past four years, hosting a ramshackle assortment of artists while maintaining a loose, but important aesthetic cohesion. Our entry point to the label was Elysia Crampton‘s Bound Adam ☆ 2011 and later Crampton’s The Light That You Gave Me To See You, two seminal works (originally released under the E+E moniker) that are as innovative and emotionally cutting today as they were when we first heard them. The rest of the label’s catalog forms an uneasy ecology, often subdued, usually pop-minded, but always pushing familiar forms into compelling new territory.

Tumblr has gone out of style in recent years, but the Total Stasis page holds a wealth of images, label news, skate videos, old mixes (check out the Haze World series that dates back to 2012), and quotes and passages from the likes of Jorge Luis Borges and Kodwo Eshun. The page offers insight into past sonic reference points (a DJ Screw version of Sade’s “I Couldn’t Love You More” can be found in the early archives) and points to the dubby, abstracted, yet still dancefloor-oriented sounds of artists like Aquarian Foundation, CS + Kreme, fmvee and RAMZi. Nowadays, much of the Total Stasis world can be gleaned from their NTS Los Angeles show, a monthly space for the label’s diasporic tendencies, as well as guest sessions from the aforementioned artists. The Total Stasis Astral Plane Mix offers a slight departure from those NTS sessions, drawing on a more linear dancefloor thread for 45 minutes before detaching entirely for the last 15. No track list for now, but the mix can be downloaded here. Find more Total Stasis releases at their label store here.