Unsigned Underground

I got a CD in the mail a while ago that I normally would not have given a second thought to. Because I try to be conscientious about these things, I threw it in the CD player and was pleasantly surprised. Note to self: don’t be so judgmental.

The CD in question is “Wave”, synthesist/composer Aaron Acosta’s second CD of “electro-acoustic / ambient” music. Although the disk starts out sounding like a dance mix with a looped techno-beat, Aaron deftly moves between musical flavors and offers a well thought out CD of tone painted soundscapes. Aaron uses a nice array of world influenced sounds like the bonang from Indonesia, tanpura from India and Rai influenced singing. These sounds are not used to beat the listener over the head and say – See what I know about ethnomusicology – but instead they are used to sweeten and spice up the arrangements.

It is interesting to point out that Aaron is a sound designer for the theater and for film. This in some ways is good, but in terms of what some of the pieces want to be, it may be a detraction because after the mood is set, we tend to stay in the mood for a very long time. On a few of the pieces I found myself wanting more variety, more surprise, more use of the automation that a modern composer can use to make the tracks seem not so static. I guess that if I were out on the dance floor listening and moving to this music it wouldn’t be an issue, but in listening to them as wholly contained pieces (concert pieces) they seemed a bit predictable.

With all that said I still feel that there is a lot of good stuff on this disk and Aaron does know how to create a mood and a soundscape with his instruments. So if you’re into the sounds of composers BT and Jan Hammer, check this disk out.

~Darryl
Unsigned Underground