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, as well as a performance at Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig, Germany