Dead Astronauts is a synthpop band and digital art project founded by designer and producer Jared Kyle Nickerson in Seattle in 2011. The project has released four studio albums — Constellations (2014), Arms of Night (2016), Silhouettes (2021), and Ghosts (2024) — across Telefuture Records, NRW Records, and Cold Transmission Music, and has contributed guest vocals to tracks by Perturbator, Timecop1983, and DJ Ten.

History

2011–2014: Formation and early releases

Dead Astronauts began in late 2011 as a side project and multimedia collective conceived by Jared Kyle Nickerson, a digital illustrator who runs the design studio Jthree Concepts.^[1] Nickerson later explained that the name was intended as an ironic comment on children who go through an “astronaut phase” paired with the phenomenon of artists whose work only sells after they die.^[2] He met Toronto-based producer and vocalist Hayley Stewart online through a record label he had done branding work for, and she joined the project in early 2012 to provide vocals for the first single, “Favorite Lover (Dead Astronauts Theme),” which appeared on the compilation Social Club Vol. 1 (2012) on Nueva Forma.^[1][3] From the outset the project was built around remote collaboration, with Nickerson handling vocals, lyrics and art direction while Stewart produced and engineered the music from Canada; the two worked via Dropbox and video chat to exchange song skeletons and iterate on them in real time.^[2] Nickerson described the division of labor in a 2014 interview with Jeszczenie.pl, saying Stewart led on production while he concentrated on songwriting, vocals and atmosphere.^[1]

The self-titled Dead Astronauts EP (2013) followed on Telefuture Records and was reissued in August 2014 as Dead Astronauts EP 2.0 (catalog TF31), expanded with remixes of all four original tracks by Perturbator and additional remixes by DJ Ten and Manfred, a remix alias of Stewart.^[4] In the r/outrun AMA, Stewart recalled that the band had initially approached Perturbator to remix a single track from the EP, and he had offered to remix all four.^[2] The debut album Constellations (2014) was released on Telefuture that October; Stewart produced the entire album in GarageBand using third-party VST plugins, with cover illustration by Glenn Arthur and gatefold illustration by Smatik.^[5][2] During the same year the duo contributed guest vocals to Perturbator’s Dangerous Days (2014) on the track “Minuit,”^[6] to Timecop1983’s Journeys (2014) on “Far Away,”^[7] and to DJ Ten’s single “Show Me the Night” (2014).^[8] The “Far Away” collaboration with Timecop1983 was mastered by Slade Templeton at Influx Studios in Bern, Switzerland, marking the start of a working relationship that would continue for the rest of the band’s existence.^[7]

2015–2019: Arms of Night, lineup changes and hiatus

The self-released Strange Ways EP (2016) preceded the band’s second album Arms of Night (2016), which was released on NRW Records and mastered by Templeton at Influx Studios.^[9] Stewart later said that Arms of Night introduced new synths absent from Constellations and that her increasing familiarity with mastering led her to push deeper bass and darker atmospheres on the album, while guitar parts were added after the rest of the material was finished.^[2] Nickerson described the album as a deliberate move to polish the band’s sound and make it more approachable to a wider audience while retaining lo-fi elements on individual tracks.^[2] A limited 180-gram vinyl edition of 150 copies, titled the “Deadnight” edition, followed in 2017 on Zoey Records in cooperation with NRW.^[10] A few months after the release of Arms of Night, Stewart left Dead Astronauts to focus on her solo project Mecha Maiko.^[11]

In early 2017 the band announced a new lineup: Templeton moved from mastering engineer into a full creative role handling production, and French-born vocalist Celine joined as vocalist and co-lyricist.^[11] In the May 2017 interview with Head Above Music, Nickerson said the goal was for the project to evolve with the new members while preserving its 80s influences, and that a rougher production approach incorporating rock elements was planned for future material; he also indicated that early live plans at the time revolved around DJ sets with live vocals to follow later.^[11] No material was released with this lineup, and Dead Astronauts entered an extended quiet period through 2019.

2020–present: Cold Transmission era

Around 2019 vocalist Florence Bullock, who also records solo as Glitbiter, joined the band.^[12] The two-track single “Forgetting Me” (2020), which paired the title track with a Mecha Maiko remix of “Missing Person,” marked the band’s move to Cold Transmission Music, which has released all subsequent material.^[13] The third album Silhouettes (2021) was released on Cold Transmission in January 2021, credited to Nickerson, Bullock and Templeton; it contains twelve tracks on CD and digital, with the vinyl edition omitting two tracks for runtime.^[14] A remix companion, Silhouettes Redux (2021), followed in December of the same year, with contributions from S Y Z Y G Y X, Cult Of Alia, The Rain Within, ULTRA SUNN, Mecha Maiko, Camlann, Dead Lights, Crying Vessel and others.^[15] In October 2023, Midnight Mannequin Records issued a deluxe 2xLP vinyl reissue of Constellations on translucent neon pink, with fourteen tracks including “Favorite Lover” as a bonus and mastering by Jeppe Hasseriis.^[16]

The fourth studio album Ghosts (2024) was preceded by the single “Erase Me” (2024), whose music video was directed by Michael Williamson.^[17] Ghosts was released on Cold Transmission in April 2024 with catalog number CT154LP, with Bullock appearing as a guest vocalist on “The Red Dress” and the band otherwise presented as the duo of Nickerson and Templeton; physical formats included a CD digipak with a twelve-page lyric booklet, a 12-inch vinyl in transparent dark purple, and a limited “Art Edition” gatefold packaged with a 32-page artbook magazine.^[18]

On May 18, 2024, Dead Astronauts performed its first live show at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival in Leipzig, Germany, billed as a European premiere at the Moritzbastei venue.^[19] The collaborative single “Yuu Yuu” (2025), a three-track release recorded with Kakuma Sound — a group of musicians from the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya’s Turkana region — was self-released in December 2025.^[20]

Band Members

Current Members

• Jared Kyle Nickerson — vocals, lyrics, art direction (2011–present)
• Slade Templeton — production (2017–present)

Former Members

• Hayley Stewart — production, vocals, lyrics (2012–2016)
• Celine — vocals, lyrics (2017–c. 2019)
• Florence Bullock — vocals, lyrics (c. 2019–2023)

Equipment

Studio

DAW

• Apple GarageBand (used for Constellations, 2014)^[2]
• Apple Logic (used from Arms of Night onward)^[2]

Studios

• Influx Studios, Bern, Switzerland — mixing and mastering, from Arms of Night (2016) onward^[9][14][18]

During Hayley Stewart’s tenure in the project, Dead Astronauts operated almost entirely with software instruments. In a 2018 interview with Electricity Club, Stewart said she “mainly rel[ied] on software to work on music,” having chosen to invest in photography equipment rather than hardware synths, and mentioned an unnamed basic preset-based keyboard as the instrument she had learned on and still owned.^[21] In the 2017 r/outrun AMA, Stewart said the entire Constellations album (2014) had been produced in GarageBand using third-party VST plugins, and that some of those plugins were incompatible when she later upgraded to Logic; she also said Arms of Night (2016) introduced new synths she had not had access to during the Constellations sessions.^[2]

Discography

Studio Albums

• Constellations (2014, Telefuture Records)
• Arms of Night (2016, NRW Records)
• Silhouettes (2021, Cold Transmission Music)
• Ghosts (2024)

Remix Albums

• Silhouettes Redux (2021)

EPs

• Dead Astronauts (2013, Telefuture Records)
• Dead Astronauts 2.0 (2014)
• Strange Ways (2016)

Singles

• “Favorite Lover (Dead Astronauts Theme)” (2012)
• “Invisible Creatures” (2016)
• “Forgetting Me” (2020)
• “Erase Me” (2024)
• “Yuu Yuu” (2025)

Compilations / Soundtrack Appearances

• Social Club Vol. 1 (2012, Nueva Forma) — “Favorite Lover”
• Perturbator — “Minuit (feat. Dead Astronauts)” on Dangerous Days (2014)
• Timecop1983 — “Far Away (feat. Dead Astronauts)” on Journeys (2014)
• DJ Ten — “Show Me the Night (feat. Dead Astronauts)” (2014)
• Diana Gitallog & Pacifico — “été rouge (feat. Dead Astronauts)” on The 80’s Dream Compilation Tape – Vol. 3 (2015, NewRetroWave)
• Perturbator — “B Side (Dead Astronauts)” on B-Sides and Remixes, Vol. I (2018, Blood Music)

Trivia

• The band’s name is an ironic reference to the childhood “astronaut phase” paired with the phenomenon of artists whose work only gains recognition after their death, according to Nickerson.^[2]
• A recurring female character in Dead Astronauts cover art, named Persephone, is named after Nickerson’s white pug, who in turn is named after the wife of Hades in Greek mythology; the character was developed with illustrator Glenn Arthur and appears in a different version on each release.^[2]
• Nickerson has cited Sisters of Mercy, Echo and the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode and Yaz as his main influences on the Dead Astronauts sound, while Stewart has pointed to Depeche Mode on the production side.^[2] In the 2014 Jeszczenie.pl interview Nickerson added Pet Shop Boys and New Order to the list, and described the band as drawn to “the darker side of the 80s.”^[1]
• The Dead Astronauts website hosted a collaborative visual art project in which more than twenty illustrators from around the world contributed desktop wallpapers based on the Persephone character.^[1]

References

External Links

• Bandcamp
• Facebook
• Instagram
• SoundCloud
• YouTube