EXIT Enters the Austin Music Grid

While known as the “live music capital of the world” in respects to the abundance of rock, country, indie, and folk music that saturates Austin’s local music scene, some of the true gems of the nation’s electronica genre thrive in the underground through bedroom and basement studios that pepper the city map. Without support from the local media, other than the occasionally stab at a review from a editor more comfortable with mainstream material, the scene still thrives from the support of those that love to dance against the grain.

If you have been a hard-core electronica connoisseur over the last 10 years, you are already in the know. For those of you that may have been a bit distracted by bands on treadmills and the latest revival of the Flock of Seagulls hair styles, welcome to your underground! Your just in time for the next awakening.

ATX Underground, a collective of some of Austin’s finest live electronica producers presents the Austin Music Grid – a weekly event held on Thursday nights at Plush in support of the local electronic music scene. Thursday, June 26th, the Grid features EXIT, the downtempo/ethereal moniker of local ATX producer, Ben Londa, in support of his latest two-track single release, Confessional. In this rare performance, Londa presents an unplugged set among the night’s DJ performers.

It is my personal opinion that a producer can not innovate until all other motives are lost and he/she is only left with the love of music to steer the creation of new sounds and songs. Judging from an excerpt in Londa’s biography, the artist has reached this critical crossroad in his own self-exploration and has arrive at just such a place:

Translating the internal meanderings of bedroom reverie into pensive, external provocations, Londa labored ferociously in an upstairs spare-bedroom-turned-studio, swirling out foreign, chaotic sounds that even confounded their creator. Exits first album in 1995 was an innocuously packaged self-released cassette that betrayed no secrets of the rich world that thrived inside. In fact, Londa did exceedingly little to promote Exits debut. And as album after album quietly shuttled their way to only the palms of his close friends, it became clear that Londa’s passion was one borne out of necessity rather than any hope of notoriety.

Want to hear what the love of musical engineering sounds like? EXIT will be performing at Plush on Thursday, June 26th from 10-2am. There is no cover. Plush is located on the corner of 7th & Red River in downtown Austin.