ALBUM

The Age

Saturday December 26, 2009

Dan Rule

WHO Aaron MartinWHAT Chautauqua (Preservation/Inertia)SINCE he emerged from Topeka, Kansas, Aaron Martin's rickety instrumentals have read like a personal chronicle of a decaying Midwest. The young composer's beautiful 2007 debut Almond and harrowingly personal 2008 work River Water were melanges of unlikely materials and approaches, drawing on children's toys, household objects and field recordings as a foil for his cello, banjo and organ-based compositions. On third album Chautauqua Martin reduces his instrumental and compositional palette to its most elemental hues. Cello and organ take centre stage; Martin colours his wiry motifs with a mere clutch of vocal drones and scenes from his family's home movie recordings. The results are startling in their sheer personal candour. New Madrid is perhaps Martin's most realised sketch yet; it's a squall of strings, textures and layered voices opening out into a lilting, shimmering drone. Located somewhere between contemporary composition, rusty American folk and postmodernist collage, Chautauqua isn't always easy to listen to. It is, however, Martin's most exposing and perhaps rewarding work yet.

© 2009 The Age

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