Aaron Taos

Emerging in the 2010s as a wry singer-songwriter whose relaxed, nonchalant style fused guitar-centric indie rock with romantic electronic accents, Aaron Taos, a onetime Vassar soccer athlete, started posting tracks online near 2015. Listeners gravitated toward understated cuts such as “Ill” and “Simple and Sober,” and after establishing himself in Brooklyn he kept evolving by threading EDM textures through his infectious pop anthems.

A Connecticut native, Taos first touched an instrument around age seven and was already writing songs and joining bands by his teenage years. Soccer initially absorbed most of his energy; a skilled competitor, he secured All New England honors as a high-school senior and then played two seasons at Vassar. During college, however, music increasingly drew his focus, leading him to perform in a band shaped by the Shins, Arctic Monkeys, and the Strokes. After finishing at Vassar he settled in Brooklyn to concentrate on solo work. The 2015 GUITS EP, containing “Bangs” and “Simple and Sober,” brought online notice, and further songs followed as he pursued a wider electronic palette. In 2017 he released the single “Off My Mind,” cut in Los Angeles with the production duo TŌN (Adam Korbesmeyer and Jerry Lang).