Aaron Martin is a musician from Kansas who has released three previous solo full-lengths in addition to a number of collaborative efforts with Machinefabriek. On Worried About The Fire, Martin constructs an intimate sound world using a variety of instruments including harmonica, organ, and bowed banjo. Martin’s previous albums have been live-to-tape affairs, but Worried About The Fire utilizes editing and sound processing to great effect, enhancing Martin’s personal vision and vesting the record with a great sense of place and personality.
Not unlike its beautiful cover art, which depicts a frozen forest blanketed in snow, Worried About The Fire can be cold on the surface, leading the listener to believe they are headed for one of those formless and faceless abstract electronic workouts of which there are far too many examples these days. As the record unfolds like a perfectly constructed experimental film, however — dripping with atmosphere, never tedious — Martin quickly allays such fears; indeed, he originally conceived it as a soundtrack to a short movie.
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