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AARON MOORE
'THE ACCIDENTAL'
.The Scars On Her Cheek Bring Dreams to my Eyes
.ON/GO
.Three Guineas
.Crayo *
.Euphony is the Name of a Telephone *
.The Letter Aa
.How Outside are we Today
Andrew Liles contributes to tracks * on this release.
ELSIE AND JACK RECORDINGS press release...
www.elsieandjack.com
elsie and jack are proud to present the debut recording from aaron moore.
this represents a welcome return to the e+j fold after volcano the bear
contributed a track to the ‘rewriting the book’ 2cd.
as a founding member of the english experimental group volcano the bear,
aaron moore has been a part of creating some of the most stimulating and
diverse music of the last 10 years with releases on nurse with wound’s
united dairies label, and the american label, beta-lactam ring records,
to name but two.
‘the accidental’ is moore’s first solo release and is
in stark contrast to his drumming and vocal work with volcano the bear.
using such instrumentation as bowed and beaten vibraphone, cymbal, chord
organ, thumb piano and keyboard, mainly concentrating with one instrument
per track, moore has created an album of mesmerizing beauty.
shifting, woozy soundscapes, blurred drones, soft conjuring, and deep
meditations - perfect for late night headphone trips.
the majority of these recordings, made at his home in leicester on a digital
8 track and one microphone in 2003 were intended for an aborted collaboration
with oren ambarchi. they then sat on his machine for a year
or so until, with the nagging of friends, he set about doing something
with them.
some of the tracks, he felt, needed the hand of another so he sent some
tracks to friends andrew liles, luke fowler
and alex neilson to collaborate on. they in turn sent the finished tracks
back to moore where he set about editing them for inclusion on ‘the
accidental’.
on hearing ‘the accidental’, italian filmmaker francesco paladino
set about creating a film to accompany the album. this is to be found
as an extra dvd (which also features an unreleased tune) with the first
100 copies of the cd.
REVIEWS
Vital Weekly
Following Daniel Padden of Volcano The Bear, there is now also
a solo CD by drummer/vocalist Aaron Moore. His solo work is of an entirely
different nature than Padden's folk music. His instruments are bowed and
beaten vibraphone, cymbal, chord organ, thumb piano and keyboard. The
title refers to the fact that Moore tried to collaborate with Oren Ambarchi,
recorded these pieces as a start, but then the collaboration never happened.
Later on he reworked these pieces himself and got help from a couple of
friends (Andrew Liles, Luke Fowler and Alex Neilson) continuouson a few
tracks. When the name Oren Ambarchi dropped things became much clearer.
The pieces Moore plays are best described as experimental ambient. Richly
textured music, in which a continous flow of sounds, but it doesn't like
the kitchy synthesizer ambient that so many other produce. It's more like
the sort of ambient music produced by Ambarchi. Warm textures, subtle
changes, but also with a keen ear on some sine wave like sounds that never
really tease the ears, and some brittle electro-acoustic sounds, such
as the short-wave like sounds in 'How Outside Are We Today?'.
The results of the music was liked so much by filmmaker Francesco Paladino
that he created a film alongside the whole CD. Blurry images of people
and winter-landscapes, large close ups with lots of color
filtering: it's perhaps not the most imaginative filming but it fits the
music quite well in terms of an ambient film. You put it on, and occasionally
you watch bits. Less demanding than the music itself, but it works
well. (FdW)
BRAINWASHED
Aaron Moore, “The Accidental”
Contributed by Scott Mckeating
Wednesday, 22 February 2006
Volcano the Bear's ability to swing between the experimental, the traditional,
energetic performance and pop structure means there are high expectations
on Aaron Moore and this, his solo debut. Not only does this package include
an exceptional album but the quick to purchase can also find accompanying
visuals on a DVD constructed by Italian filmmaker Francesco Paladino (and
an extra unreleased track).
These tracks are surprisingly coherent and realized for music that began
as source material for an aborted collaboration with sometime delicate
layerist Oren Ambarchi. Keeping it fairly minimal, Moore concentrates
on a few elements at a time with each of these songs. This technique lets
the sounds expand and easily fill out the songs' space. Andrew Liles and
Luke Fowler assisted Moore on a few of the tracks, having a fiddle about
and then passing them back for further re-editing/shaping.
Ringing in the album are a half dozen swinging alarm clocks on mile long
pendulums on “The Scars on her Cheek Bring Dreams to my Eyes”
which bring an instant hydra-headed meditative atmosphere. These sharp
edged ringing metal tones are either dreams of riding the fairground or
sleeping through a city block of burglaries.
The film looks like it’s meant to be taken in a single trip with
its movie style credits a fake TV static and test card ending. It may
be very competently built and professional looking DVD but the imagery
is best left to the imagination in this case. The slo-mo snowfall, negative
work, blurring and dislocated cold imagery of a figure in blue are all
fairly familiar to viewers of experimental media. It’s unfortunate
then that the visuals only end up complementing the sounds on two tracks.
When it does work it’s the combination of the elements and the shelter
of modern life and the film adds to the music. “Three Guineas”
is a brief nursery tune that becomes invested with the adult world when
accompanied with a rain splattered view from a car’s windscreen.
The song is transformed into a portent of doom.
“How Outside are we Today?” also benefits from a view from
inside a moving vehicle, except this time its looking over and beyond
a luminous segment of Glorious Technicolor orange to landscape drained
of color. This track’s (the single Luke Fowler co-write) slowly
constructed tone shifts into an everlasting moment of icy frozen drone
infected by digi damage. There’s a brief and structureless background
spider web of percussive clatter from Moore’s fellow Daniel Padden
associate Alex Neilson.
The thumb piano and casual thumping movement on “Euphony is the
Name of a Telephone” has a dry reverb that sits in the same cold
empty room as you. The track could do with being extended by a few minutes
and perhaps if Moore had originally thought of the material as finished
solo work this may have ended up being the case. The extra track “Foil
Bandage” is the only real musical disappointment here, a stretch
of cymbal tapping waves and a fairly unremarkable rise and fall drone
make me glad its stuck on the DVD and the not the album; its easier to
disregard that way.
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