Kyle Schember and Ryan Stuit, an electronic music duo known as Test Shot Starfish, first met on a film set in the late ‘90s, both working on the crew for Forever Fabulous (initially billed as Tiara Tango), which ultimately led to musical collaboration. Since then, they’ve worked on music for several unique projects: they scored and handled sound design for Coachella’s official documentary, have had their music featured on the Netflix docuseries We Speak Dance, and last month they released sophomore album Music For Space.
“The latest album explores the journey of where the aerospace industry started to today, the trials and tribulations of the people moving the ball forward,” Schember says. “There are exciting companies doing exciting things that sometimes the general public doesn’t even know. This is to bring awareness to that.”
It’s fitting that SpaceX, a company that designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft technology, licenses all of its music for its webcasts from Test Shot Starfish, who bill their music as “the thinking man’s techno.”
“To me, it’s important to have ambient background music, soundtracks for when you’re designing things, creating things,” Stuit elaborates. “We want to make music for engineers and artists and scientists that can be inspirational.”
It makes sense, then, that Test Shot Starfish seeks other ways, apart from traditional album releases, to get their music out there. Schember says their music placements and collaborations are a result of some strategic socializing as well as research into the world of music licensing.
“What a lot of artists miss is that it’s not enough to hope your music gets placed. You need to talk to people and attend events,” Schember says. “For example, I just went to the Guild of Music Supervisors Conference in L.A. You have to understand that world and dive into how you can be of service, how you can best support someone’s vision and work fast on your feet.”
Web: TestShotStarfish.com
Most Recent: Music for Space
Contact: [email protected]
