Octavian Winters

Octavian Winters was born in 2022, into the ghostly isolation of lockdown in San Francisco. Their sound mirrors the surrealism of that time, weaving together threads of the visceral and ethereal into shimmering instrumental layers with vocals that alternately soar and dive. Stephan Bryan Salit (guitar), Randy Gzebb (drums), Jay Denton (bass) and Ria Aursjoen (vocals, keyboards) together craft their visceral and ethereal sound into a texture all its own – of stories once told but half-remembered, under a dusk of shadows and stars, in an abandoned city beneath the winter moon.

Octavian Winters has gained a reputation for tightly crafted songs that range from spaciously dreamy to dark and driving, as well as exceptionally transporting live performances. In 2023 the band released their critically acclaimed debut "The Line or Curve" and is preparing for their sophomore release this summer. Octavian Winters was featured at the 2025 A Murder of Crows festival in New York City and has just completed a Western US tour with post-punk legends Pink Turns Blue. OW performed at Wave-Gotik-Treffen 2026 in Leipzig, Germany.

“…they can head off in all manner of eclectic and exciting new directions and still make music that encapsulates everything that made you love them in the first place.” – Big Takeover Magazine USA

“...the song... possesses a dreamy quality... with a sense of flow and transition instead of feeling constrained... these five minutes of uplifting separation are absolute bliss…” – Aural Aggravation, UK

“...a very different, yet equally sublime offering... if you ever held a torch for Cocteau Twins, then this song will definitely scratch your itch.” – postpunkmonk.com, USA

“...casting the whole into a bewitching surreal dimension... to radiate blissful ecstasy under a deep resonating sidereal arch...” – WhiteLight/WhiteHeat , Italy

“...an ethereal meditation on human insignificance in the face of the vastness of the universe… ‘By The Stars’ conveys the strange peace that arises when we accept that we cannot control the course of everything we love.” – lacaverna.net, Mexico

“A testament to the band’s skill at making the breaking of boundaries sound so natural… like listening to an angel falling to earth and becoming almost mortal.” – AnalogueTrash, UK

“A flowing journey… an atmosphere that hovers somewhere between dream pop, ethereal wave, and classic darkwave.” – Monkeypress.de, Germany
“A slow-moving ballad filled with longing and quiet wonder… evoking the feeling of staring into a vast night sky while holding onto a fading memory.” – Destroy//Exist, Greece

“The interplay between the vocals and guitars is deceptively tight without ever losing the pure dreamy pleasure of either… drawing together moody trad goth, dreampop and shoegaze with a sense of space and pacing…” I Die: You Die, Canada

“A shimmering new single... lush, slow-burning, and cinematic… an atmosphere that feels suspended between dreampop elegance and nocturnal romanticism.” – Darkenin Heart, Greece
“Some artists write songs. Others seem to build constellations. Octavian Winters belong to this second category.” – Inner Echo Reviews, Italy