Coast to Coast Collective Comes Together As a Gathering of Great Indie Chillwave Minds

Luxury Noise, patchnotes, Simple Syrup, Econojazz, and Medicine Mountain are on the ground floor of the electronic collective that features up and coming artists.

Being an electronic producer can be one of the loneliest paths an artist can choose. Even when a primary songwriter writes the music, the traditional band still has an intense sense of collaboration. But electronic music? Most of the time, it’s you, your laptop, and a sampler.

“Oh, hi, keyboard. Fancy a conversation?”

A solitary art form indeed.

This notion is why Paul Nunn, who performs as Luxury Noise, started Coast to Coast Collective, a community that includes not only musicians but also visual artists and streamers. Working alongside Kyle Schwendinger, who performs as patchnotes, Nunn’s collective has other excellent heady bedroom beatmakers in Simple Syrup, Medicine Mountain, and Econojazz. “We’re focusing on giving artists in the collective a platform to be seen,” says Schwendinger. “We think the artists featured are doing some pretty rad stuff, and we like to share that with people looking for new music and up and coming artists.”

Coast to Coast Collective Vol. 1 is their first outing together, an EP released earlier this week on Bandcamp and will be out on all streaming services later this month. Featuring new and unreleased tracks from all five members, each displays their unique approach to electronic music while also demonstrating why these five performers work so well together.

Nunn originally envisioned a mixtape gang, but after working with Schwendinger, it shifted to a collective and “taking a more IRL show approach to URL shows,” says Nunn. “The idea is that these shows will bring forward artists we think are doing cool things online and eventually have in-person events with some kind of lasting artifacts.”

Chillwave is a niche genre with an emphatic community, and all five artists met while submitting their work for Max Spencer’s (better known as chillwavekittens) Twitch live streams. “Pretty much all of my collaborations and the process of getting out of my bedroom and my head have been through chillwavekittens one one way or another,” says Nunn. “A lot of us had been passing each other in streams over the years, but CHILLWAVE LIVE has definitely been the beginning of a more serious sense of community.”

While the Coast to Coast Collective venture is entirely independent, the group has early support in their first streamed shows. They made their debut last week as part of WAVE N CHILL hosted by Max Spencer, with sponsor support from Pacific Plaza Records, who have featured a few of the member’s releases.

WATCH THE WAVE N CHILL LIVESTREAM HERE!

There is plenty more to come from the group, with Luxury Noise releasing his next album, Second Light, on May 6 via Pacific Plaza Records (I’ve heard it, and it rules if this is your thing). More EPs and shows are to follow, but in the meantime, enjoy some of my favorite songs from each member’s solo work!

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