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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