Enter the Anarchostar, Distal's Synesthesiac Dystopia of Sight and Sound

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Enter the Anarchostar, Distal's Synesthesiac Dystopia of Sight and Sound

Along with Silkie and visual artist Freshcore, the Atlanta producer has created a whole new world.

Atlantan producer Distal has always exhibited a knack for lofty concept––He's released everywhere from Pinch's heady and deep dubstep imprint Tectonic to London-based Soul Jazz, a vinyl-heavy world label. His latest, endeavor, though, is his most conceptual production to date, and fuses his influences of film, literature, libertarianism, and space.

Enter the Anarchostar, a science-fiction label that's centered around a singular narrative, the mythos of a galaxy that plays out in both musical and comic form.

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Perhaps Distal himself can explain it best: "Each release will tell either a different part of the story from the world of Anarchostar," he begins. "It will also read out like a comic on the website along with access to listen to the music while you browse."

"I've always been a huge fan of the science fiction movie poster. It all started with Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I wanted to pay homage to this idea in the gatefold of the first release and synonymously with the first track of my album 'Welcome To The Anarchostar.' It's the theme music for the prologue of the label."

"I've been working on the illustrations with a good friend of mine Freshcore from Cordoba, Argentina. He's the visual mastermind." As you can see in the picture below, this is a concept drawing of what a city might look like in the Anarchostar world."

"Just like with any form of totalitarian state there is much repetition and conformity in the design. The government is basically in charge of keeping those left on the planet alive and to do it at as cheap as necessary."

"After completing Silkie's chapter I visualized his pirated radio pod emerging over the hazy city with the backdrop of a blurred pink sun in the distance. Winds outside of the city becoming more and more fierce as the glowing star lowers itself on the horizon. To avoid becoming a lockable target Silkie moves his station in and out of the buildings, ghetto's and ridgeways."

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"Troposphere cocktail hour. This bougie club ritual has become commonplace among the elite in the orbiting cities.On the back of the vinyl release and on the cover of the digital release you can view a scene of Silkie perched high above a crowd in a low orbiting club playing his music as an ancient machine opens up and somehow transforms people from within."

"The machine shed's old souls and replaces them with new fresh ones. It's sort of a space-age reinterpretation of the confessional booth. Think Mos Eisley meets a Fhloston Paradise cruise ship."

"This scene and track has a referential connection to the last part about the soul shedding machines. These machines that were being used in the clubs were once stored away and inoperable because no one could figure out how to open them, but the stories of their extreme power lived on in urban myth. There is only one key to open them and make them work… Silkie's music."

"Conveniently Silkie end's up using his magical ability to open the Portal to send everyone to the fabled Anarchostar. Flip to the back of the marvel card…look at silkie's magic ability, and you'll see he's pretty much maxed out."

"This is a little teaser into something we'll be doing down the road. In a later release I'll be focusing quite heavily on the now unnamed evil antagonists of the story. I've written quite a bit of back story on them but I wanted to tease in a couple images of them here."

"I always imagined them to have the demeanor of Emperor Palpatine but the controversially sharp Hugo Boss look of futurism and power. I'll be pulling quite a bit of inspiration from the theory that the American CIA was using modern art as a weapon."