Originally conceived as the soundtrack for a short film, Worried About The Fire has the hallmarks of atmospheric soundscape built for psychological effect and immersion. Kansas-based Aaron Martin forgoes live cello experimentation for an approach based around deconstruction and electronic manipulation of fragments gleaned from cello, banjo, harmonica and organ. This approach plays out in 12 sketches of electroacoustic sonic forms, or environments, or landscapes, depending on how you envisage the space sound occupies. There is definitely the sense of sketch as precursor, in the painterly sense, to fuller fleshed out pieces.
‘Albee’ opens the album eliciting a form of electroacoustic flutter, akin to industrial drone, before the introduction of melodic entanglement and release. It builds an expectation soon undercut, in following tracks, by acoustic collage, effect driven processing and concentration on extended dramatic experimentation with the sonic capacities of various acoustic instruments. ‘New Brighton’, constructs an excellent tense atmosphere with contrasting bowing, spatial effects with Tibetan bowl and the upper register electronic extension of the sound into a sharp resonance for the mind. ‘Wires of Glass’ with its antique vinyl hiss and loop, hum, and choral like drone induce what can only be described as a reverent space. Or at least the sonic equivalent of the perceived imagery forming such a construct, if it constitutes an existent at all.
It is just this very dimensional foreboding, eliciting of hushed sharp import that Aaaon Martin is quite skilled at achieving. No doubt the addition of mastering by 12k label head Taylor Dupree adds to the dense rewarding dimensionality of Worried About The Fire. The quite stunning cover art is executed by Experimedia head Jeremy Bible and it has on the inside a fold, hiding the digitally manipulated landscape, to form a pattern in nature, almost an echo of a mandala. However I leave it to you to delve inside this release to find for yourself an interior open to a contemporary rendering of sound, through fragments, construction and meditations on possibilities of form.
Innerversitysound
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