Gold Star

There is a wall stacked with amps where there might be a TV or a dining table in Marlon Rabenreither's living room. The bookcases contain a library of music autobiographies and historic tomes, alongside reams of old vinyl records. The set-up could be from the '60s, ‘70s, or '80s, but the year is 2018 and when recording as Gold Star, the Austria-born and LA-bred Rabenreither makes music that’s similarly timeless and unable to pin to one context.

Of the future, he notes that he doesn't feel like the finished article. “It doesn't matter if you've written a hundred songs, there's still so much to learn.” For Gold Star, the education is a lifelong endeavor. “It's like being blindfolded,” Rabenreither says of walking his path. “A lot of it is just working in the dark. You just try to evolve and be honest. I can justify writing from a small personal perspective. Any kind of simple, small gesture is radical. When everything is about consumption and violence, if you can do something that is just sincere and well intentioned then that's something, at least.”