Aaron Martin – Night Erased Them All

Aaron Martin’s new record “Night Erased Them All,” is another fine addition to his already expansive body of work. Proceeding “Worried About The Fire” which was released earlier this year, his latest recording is a detailed 30 minutes of sound manipulation and cello wizardry that will be sold as a limited cassette and CD-r release through Sonic Meditations.

On “Night Erased Them All” Aaron designed the tracks to be listened while driving alone at night. Unfortunately I sold my car a few short months ago, so without a means of listening to the record as intended, I set about playing it in different places all which in some way were linked to the road or travel.

On Friday night I took a perfectly timed half hour bus journey through London. Sitting at the front of the top deck, I wanted to connect the music’s sounds with my vision of the road. Typically, being rush hour, the stop start nature of the journey was unlikely to reflect the freeness of the open Kansas highways that this album would have been built around, so I shut my eyes and let my imagination be fuelled by the creative sounds.

Opening track “Limb Study” is introduced via the customary Aaron Martin sound of bowed string play. His moody cello immediately creates a sense of mobility, albeit within a dark surrounding. One has the image of a POV camera shot looking out of the windshield of car, with only the road lit and the yellow road marks providing a sense of purpose. As the string play loops and develops with layered textures, again very much staple ingredients to Aaron’s sound, light vocal hums and pierced static sounds join in. These add a dreamy uneasiness to the music and in that sense a rather nightmarish feel to the ‘journey.’ There is some respite from this though as a momentary breakdown of these noises allows the cello to reappear. Aaron’s playing here is strikingly beautiful – displaying the sombre, melancholic qualities of the instrument and evoking a true sense of loneliness on the road. This feeling of isolation is enhanced by the reintroduction of a processed vocal sound which resembles sighing. Combined with the cello, the image of travelling alone by night is forced home – the thought of an endless road being the driver’s only focal point as the remaining setting is clouded in darkness.

Coincidentally, earlier in the day, I had read a short essay on highways in Eastern Europe. Here the writer was discussing the solitude of the open road, and how a night in a foreign country is best spent on the highway as the sense of being foreign is spread to all who drive on it. Fresh with those images in mind, I listened to “Night Erased Them All” again, and did so by walking through the local heath and onto a train station.

Last night, once the sun had set, and the warm evening had advanced, I sat atop of one of London’s great vantage points with a view down to the city below. With the city lit by office buildings and the blur of moving motorcars, it felt like the perfect stationary position to listen to the record again.

The second track on the album “Kept Ashes” opens with a chorus of hums. Once again built on a layered looping of sound, these voices form a trail; like the brake lights of a car.  A fuzz of static blends with the human noises, made to sound like torrential rain. With the humming now reduced to a minimum, one can picture the faint red colour of the lights piercing through the downpour. As the electronic sounds supersede their human counterparts an awkward bowing of cello is introduced. One can imagine a mist beyond the rainy road, which creates an uneasy mystery for the driver – an undefined objective. As more free flowing cello is introduced, the stormy hazards found earlier in the track start to die down. It’s as if the long night is slowly coming to an end, with the minimal light of dawn, represented by a light use of percussion and the reintroduction of voices, finally allowing the driver to realise that life exists beyond the road.

“Night Erased Them All” cleverly depicts the emptiness of solitary driving. With his rich blending of electrical and acoustic sound, Aaron Martin has created a dreamy record that provides its listener with a detailed imagery of journeying after dark. Although I was unable to take to the road to experience the full intentions of the record, fortunately this can be saved for a later date. For now though, I’ll let Aaron’s sound guide me through this evening, for the night is sure to eradicate all in its wake. – Review by Josh Atkin for Fluid Radio

Tracks written and produced by Aaron Martin
Cover artwork by James Anthony Martin

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