Aaron Wright - Aaron Wright

Aaron Wright sings and writes songs, but he is no run-of-the-mill singer-songwriter. There is an adroitness here, a pop lightness of touch, that elevates him beyond the usual folk troubadour fare. He was born to a Canadian mother and Scottish father, and developed an early love for quintessentially American folk (Neil Young) and classic British pop (John Lennon’s Beatles demos). Aaron moved from Canada to Edinburgh as a child, pausing only to run away to London, aged 15, to see a Simon and Garfunkel concert. He later dropped out of university, intent on throwing himself into music, and seemingly unable to function without it (he still doesn’t have a bank account, for instance).

Thankfully, Aaron was spotted two years ago by a new Glasgow-based label, DSet, who promptly signed him. They helped him record an album that feels inspired by early-70s Paul McCartney, Harry Nilsson or Ronnie Lane, together with the classic British and American greats on which he was raised. It’s all there on ‘I’ll Be Fine’, a harmonious and irresistibly hummable number, musically sweet but lyrically maudlin. ‘Go On Yer Self’, meanwhile, is an exhilarating mix of West-Coast harmonies, dramatic trumpets, and towering choruses. Throughout, a key part of the album’s charm and depth is Aaron’s voice (he started life as a guitarist, but having plucked up the courage to sing, had to learn to reign in his bellow). Now, it is a strange, comforting thing, as at home on the record’s brighter moments as it is the orchestral swell of ‘Middle Ground’ – written when he was just sixteen - or the brooding ‘Say You Love Me Still’.

The record also delights in a love for language, which is something of a passion for this English almost-graduate. Aaron often writes songs by connecting sounds, syllables, and stringing them together with the melodies: words aren’t preconceived, but frequently just tumble out. The results are dark and often tender, nicely contrasting the album’s more upbeat moments: on the otherwise-chipper ‘I’ll Be Fine’, for instance, lines include “my heart’s been shrinking like a violet...see we’ve been drinking, kinda violent.” On the likes of ‘Origami Me’ – in itself an accidental phrasing – things become even more experimental: “pur le de chantalie / pick up love and shoot it like a crossbow...well I can’t tell you from me / fuck them all we’ll taste just like an asbo”. We don’t quite know what it means either, but it’s further proof of an artist whose ‘singer-songwriter’ tag doesn’t really give him enough credit.

‘Aaron Wright’ is fleshed out and coloured in by something of a mini-orchestra, whose respective output neatly compliments Aaron’s sound: see Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake (bass/vocals) and Francis Macdonald (drums, vocals), Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell (vocals) and Nigel Bailie (trumpet), Steve Jackson of Belle & Sebastian on guitar, and Mick Cooke from B&S on horns/strings. But it’s very much Aaron Wright and his musical and lyrical voice that is behind the success of the record. At just twenty-three years old, he has made an album full of charm, ideas, and promise.

TRACKLISTING:

01. I’ll Be Fine 02. Trampoline 03. Say You Love Me Still 04. Go On Yerself 05. Middle Ground 06. Crosses 07. Amateur Sleuth 08. Take Them All On 09. Origami Me 10. Cellophane 11. Teardrop Sunday Clown 12. Kitchen Floor

Be the first to review this record. Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!