College students have an insatiable appetite for dance music, and University of Oregon events like the Willamette Valley Music Festival and the upcoming Campus Block Party have responded by booking electronic acts in droves. Among these is drums-synth duo Octonaut, whose recent spot at the Willamette Valley Music Festival should secure them a reputation around campus as a live act worth seeing in Eugene.
Most of the band’s audience at the moment consists of Eugene natives. But since opening for Megan James of Purity Ring at the WOW Hall for the UO Cultural Forum, they’ve begun to see the commercial potential of playing for a college audience.
“(Students) bring our music with them when they go back to Chicago, San Francisco, wherever,” said synth player and producer Graham Reinhart.
“To get into playing for people who are only here for a few years — exposure to that is very sought after,” said drummer Phil Allen. “Of course we’ll play on campus on a huge stage with a huge sound system, why wouldn’t we?”
Allen and Reinhart first met at a bimonthly improv event hosted by the Maize Lounge, a music club owned by the Cornucopia franchise which lasted from 2011 to 2012.  After the lounge shut down, Allen and Reinhart started to take their jamming more seriously, and Octonaut was born.
Since then, they’ve frequented the WOW Hall, Luckey’s and they’ve even gigged in Portland and San Francisco.  They currently hold a monthly residency at Blairally Vintage Arcade in the Whiteaker, where they play the first Saturday of every month.
Their first EP, Thud Glow, was released in February by FunDip Records, home of local favorites like KittyTrap and SugarBeats. They’re planning their next release, which will be either an EP or a full-length. They’re estimating six to eight tracks.
The group previously recorded at home, but they’ve moved into Track Town Records, a large studio in the Whiteaker, to commence work on their next project.
“It’s great having our setup completely ready to go, all turned on and the doors opened for creativity so we don’t have to move all our stuff every time we play,” said Reinhart. “That next day we can just walk in the door and start fresh.”
It’s anyone’s guess how Octonaut will expand their sound in the studio. But one thing’s for certain: this is a band we’ll be seeing a lot more of around campus.