It is one thing to listen to and enjoy a song; it is another to understand it, or at least get a feeling for where it comes from. But that, for me, is as much the fascination of music as the sound that it makes. Which is why I love tracks like “Rust Mountain (Monochrome Piano Version),” the new one from Aptøsrs, the back story here is very much part of the appeal.
Given that Paul Terry chose to name this current project after a dinosaur (Aptøsrs being a contraction of Apatosaurus), it probably comes as no surprise that he is a fan of such mythical offspring Godzilla. So when Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One was released as a special black-and-white, or monochrome, version, it prompted him to muse on what a “monochrome” version of his own music might sound like.
The answer stands before you: a piano version of “Rust Mountain,” the lead single from the album Elders, now a track where the dynamic interplay of drums, bass guitar, and the swathes of strings has been reduced to the song’s vital sonic essence. But this is anything but a simple boiling down of the music to its most minimal form; the ebb and flow of the keys is as majestic as the original dynamic, here using a gentler sonic voice to describe the song’s moods and emotions.
This take is perhaps the flip side of the Aptøsrs sound, but clearly the work of the same artist, and the ever-shifting piano line wanders between the same spectrum of fragile and euphoric, anthemic and intense, eloquent and creative, but if that early version of the song was the oil painting, this is the watercolour, something built on more delicate outlines, more restrained sonic hues, and a more creative use of space.
And more than anything, this new rendering reminds us that songs are never finished, not if their creator feels that there are still interesting and exciting aspects to be explored. In the Aptøsrs’ world, exploration is the name of the game.
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