Anthony Ferraro, a singer, songwriter, and keyboardist based in Oakland, California, launched Astronauts, etc. in 2012 with its signature dreamy, soul-tinged indie pop, joining Toro y Moi's touring band as a regular member the following year. The project's first release on a label and in a proper studio, the 2015 album Mind Out Wandering, moved toward a more polished soul-pop aesthetic before a later return to gentler textures.
While pursuing music performance studies at UC Berkeley, Ferraro saw his ambitions of a concert pianist career dashed by progressive arthritis in his hands. He turned instead to indie pop that placed fewer physical demands, a shift coinciding with his 2012 meeting with Chaz Bear, also known as Chaz Bundick, of Toro y Moi. That same year brought the self-recorded Supermelodic Pulp EP, Astronauts, etc.'s first outing, whose artwork Bear supplied. After completing a Musicology degree, Ferraro took up keyboard duties on Toro y Moi tours and issued Sadie, his second home-recorded EP, in 2014.
Astronauts, etc.'s debut full-length, Mind Out Wandering, was tracked at John Vanderslice's analog facility Tiny Telephone alongside Ferraro's live band and delivered a tighter yet still inviting sound shaped by '70s soul influences; Hit City USA released it in 2015. Two months afterward came an all-demos edition of the same album. The project's next long-player, 2018's Living in Symbol, revived a hazy, lower-fi approach for its wistful soul arrangements and was co-produced by Bear. A co-headlining tour with the Mattson 2 followed the album's arrival.
