Teen Daze

Teen Daze is the primary moniker of Jamison Isaak, a prolific musician from British Columbia, Canada, whose output veers between mellow, summery electronic instrumentals and atmospheric indie pop. Home-recorded early releases such as 2012′s All of Us, Together blended light dance beats and chilled textures with sparkling, innocent melodies. His first studio-recorded album, 2015′s Morning World, was a lushly arranged set of bittersweet guitar-driven songs. Subsequent releases such as 2017′s Themes for Dying Earth revisited the ambient and downtempo sounds of his older work, but with a wider scope and advanced studio experience. With 2021′s Interior, Isaak embraced the dance music he listened to as a youth, crafting some of his most club-friendly work.
Isaak’s home-recorded atmospheric synth pieces first gained acclaim when he posted them to his Tumblr account. Arcade Sound Ltd. released his debut EP, the summery yet bittersweet Four More Years, in mid-2010. The lo-fi indie EP Beach Dreams and the more electronic My Bedroom Floor appeared online by the end of the year. Isaak played 2011′s South by Southwest Festival and toured Canada before his second EP, A Silent Planet (which was inspired by the time he spent reading C.S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet during a seven-week stay in the Swiss Alps studying philosophy), arrived on the Waaga label in August 2011. Isaak also did remixes for artists such as Seven Saturdays and issued music with his other project, Two Bicycles.
In mid-2011, Isaak recorded Teen Daze’s first full-length, All of Us, Together, this time inspired in part by Utopian Visions, a book he discovered in a thrift store. The album was released by Lefse Records the following year. Later in 2012, Teen Daze issued The Inner Mansions, a more personal set of songs that also featured a cover of Brian Eno’s “Always Returning.” For 2013′s Glacier, the producer opted for a more insular, ambient-inspired sound. Isaak drastically updated his creative process for his next album, traveling to San Francisco to record with John Vanderslice, resulting in the more organic-sounding Morning World. Paper Bag Records released the album in 2015.
Isaak then started a new label called FLORA, which issued Teen Daze’s Themes for Dying Earth (a return to more ambient pastures) in 2017. This was quickly followed by the companion album Themes for a New Earth. After reissuing three of his early releases on vinyl in 2018, Teen Daze returned in 2019 with the lush instrumental full-length Bioluminescence, as well as an accompanying remix album. Isaak also issued ambient recordings under his own name, and Balearic-style downtempo and dance music as Pacific Coliseum. In 2020, Teen Daze released the EPs Pure Water (inspired by Ian Urbina’s book The Outlaw Ocean) and the four-volume Reality Refresh. The ambient EP Breathing Tides appeared in early 2021. Interior, a French house-inspired album featuring guest appearances by Cecile Believe and Joseph Shabason, was released by Cascine near the end of the year. ~ Heather Phares & Paul Simpson