Aaron Martin – Comet’s Coma (Eilean)

Topeka, KS-based experimentalist/cellist Martin had a busy 2014, releasing three full length albums. In addition to this fifth solo LP, he also put out a live cassette called Chapel Floor, as well as the collaboration BV with Oakland, CA musician Joseph Angelo, under the moniker Black Vines (see my review of the latter here). Comet’s Coma is his first solo LP since 2010’s Worried About the Fire, which I called “mysterious and hypnotic” in Big T issue 66. Though Worried found him atypically editing and processing (or “deconstructing,” as he calls it) previously recorded parts from various performances/collaborations, Comet’s presumably returns him to his normal “live” approach, composing and performing all the music over a three-month period during the summer. But his means are less important; it’s the ends that count, and the sound collages he creates on Comet’s are every bit as alluring and anxiety-alleviating as those on Worried.

Most of the album is dominated by his haunting, quivery cello. His distinctive playing takes on many personalities: it’s anguished and anxious on the Eastern-tinged opener “A Figure Falls Still,” gliding and graceful on the classical-tinged “Lost to Light,” and elevating and expansive on the Nick Drake-ish “A Narrow Clearing.” The dexterous Martin also plays a cornucopia of other instruments, ranging from ukulele, banjo, glockenspiel, and lap steel, to singing bowls, roll up piano, bowed cymbal, mbira, and concertina. They are occasionally interspersed with field recordings such as warm, crackling vinyl sounds or soft, pattering rainfall (and, on “Poured Out, Pulled Under,” bathed with hymnal, humming human voices). Headphone-filling compositions like the serene, sea journey-evoking title track or the chilly, church organ-conjuring “Widow’s Walk” can easily transform your hectic habitat into a harmonious haven, suggestive of the spacious solitude of Martin’s own home state. (eilean-records.com)

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