Pontiac Streator strictly avoids the traditional means of artist-fan communication. They have no social media presence and their releases are rolled out with little promotion, if any at all. There are no interviews. All that’s known is that they form part of a tight-knit crew of producers based in Philadelphia, United States exploring the broader realms of experimental ambient. As part of virtualdemonlaxative alongside Ulla, Exael, and Special Guest DJ, they’ve ventured towards grindcore on Huerco S.’s West Mineral Ltd.

The project’s history is easy to map. It begins in 2018, when Pontiac Streator surfaced on 180’s Choice, delivering six immersive environments with soft atmospherics and dashes of nostalgic melody. A year later, they teamed up with Ulla Straus for two outings on West Mineral Ltd., before resorting to solo work this year. Triz, with nine cloudy, ambient stunners, arrived in July, brewing with vivid sound design and vaguely organic textures. Preceded by Select Works . vol I, a collection of tracks recorded during 2018 and 2019, the record’s genre feels as intentionally obscure as the identity of its creator.

Pontiac Streator’s XLR8R podcast, recorded this month, casts the same spell as their production work. Its textures make it feel alive, as it moves through a heady concoction of dub and downtempo psychedelia. There are some collaborations and much of the material is unreleased, which makes it the first peek of upcoming work from Pontiac Streator and his Philadelphia cohorts.

01. What have you been up to recently?

Camping in the mountains around Philadelphia and upstate New York and making tracks with Iggy.

02. When and where did you record the mix?

Last week at Itsnotamacy’s in Philadelphia.

03. How did you choose the records that you included?

The mix includes a lot of forthcoming material from the family and many tracks friends have been kind of working on during quarantine.

04. What can we expect with it?

Some like mangy cursed energy. There’s a lot of collaborations.

05. What’s up next?

More collaborations, and hopefully a West Mineral Ltd. tour once the coronavirus is out of here.

XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to hear the podcast offline you will need to subscribe to our Select channel, or subscribe to XLR8R+ to download the file. The move to Mixcloud Select will ensure that all the producers with music featured in our mixes get paid. You can read more about it here.

Full XLR8R+ Members can download the podcast here.

Tracklisting

01. Florian T M Zeisig “Aspire” (Exael Remix) (Enmossed)
02. Vitimin “Arte” (Unreleased)
03. Ultrafog “Hourglass” (Unreleased)
04. Nikolay Kozlov “Drift” (forthcoming self-release)
05. URA “Hash” (Naff Recordings)
06. Goyle “Dither Sequence” (Unreleased)
07. Downstairs J “Bug Spray” (at Jesse’s) (Unreleased)
08. Caveman LSD w/ Exael “Acab” (Unreleased)
09. OL “Omecon” (feat. Sensational) (Asyncro)
10. Huerco S “PLONK VIII” (feat SIR E.U) (Unreleased)
11. JJ + JS “CRX” (Lillerne Tapes)
12. LOG “LOG 2” (Experiences LTD)
13. Pent “XY” (Mega Metal)