Aaron Martin - River water

A follow-up to his Preservation debut 'Almond', Australian cellist and sound sculptor Aaron
Martin continues to fashion his peculiarly intimate brand of bedroom electro-acoustic music,
having recently collaborated with Machinefabriek on his ‘Huis’ 3" CD-r and the ‘Cello Recycling’
10”. While Rutger Van Zuydervelt's compositions tend to be glazed with a kind of hard-edged
industrial professionalism, Martin's work is characterised by a sense of personable domesticity.
It's not so much that this music could really be regarded as lo-fi, more that the scale has been
shrunken to incorporate up-close recordings of the most hum-drum sounds you could imagine
from everyday life: shakers, cutlery and even candleholders figure in these pieces somewhere,
chiming in with the arsenal of more conventional musical instruments at Martin's disposal (to
name a few: ukulele, mandolin, ocarina, an assortment of bells, and of course the cello). The
music can take stylistic turns from outright drone to a more folksy sound without coming
across as inconsistent, shifting from monochord sustain in the first half of 'Tar Paper' into the
homely, tuneful loops of 'Tire Swing' with consummate fluidity. Maintaining a constant balance
between accessibility and experimental sound crafting, ‘River Water’ is a record that slowly
unfolds with every careful listen.

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