Aaron Martin - Chautauqua

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4...according to our Ant on Thu 01 Oct, 2009.

I think I've enjoyed listening to everything I've heard by Aaron Martin. He's a supremely talented artist and his releases are getting stronger if 'Chautauqua' is anything to go by. The opener is fantastic with field recordings of bird calls, a most majestic organ, cello and some fabulous twinkles. This is his third album and it really does showcase his skills as a multi-instrumentalist. I think he's probably gained a lot of recognition for his cello work, which really shines here but he is equally capable on banjo and organ. I'm not entirely sure how his recoding process works. One can only assume like the rest of us he only has two arms, although I could be wrong and he may well be some kind of octopus type mutant super hero. So I guess he plays and overdubs etc. but you'd be forgiven for thinking that several musicians were together playing in a room simultaneously. High quality throughout in an amazing fold out package on the Prescription label.

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The Preservation label presents Chautauqua, the third album from US artist Aaron Martin. Aaron not only surprised many with his 2007 debut Almond but gained great notices worldwide. The album set him on a course of many collaborations, and has since worked with a diverse array of artists, including Machinefabriek, Dawn Smithson (Jessamine, Sunn O))) and Jasper TX. His second album, River Water, proved a darkly compelling turn and stands as a forebear to Chautauqua in its pursuit of a distillation of pure emotional range, poised at the meeting point of intensity, calm and resolution. Now, Chautauqua puts Aaron s considerable talents and unique compositional vision at their most sharp and measured level yet. Concentrating on a core group of instruments cello, banjo and organ - the pieces on Chautauqua are interwoven with field recordings as well as sounds from home movies, creating an edge tingling with a heightened, ghostly kind of nostalgia. Chautauqua is a poignant work, magnetic in its compulsion

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