I’ve never been there, but I feel comfortable declaring that Dartmouth is not a Rock ‘n’ Roll city. It might not even be a city.
Its name conjures images of Thermos flasks, warm blankets and plenty of comfy chairs for old people to wait for the sweet release of death.
I may, of course be wrong. I only mention this because of a nugget of info I found in the descriptive tags that accompany Aux. Out‘s music. They read:
acoustic ambient electronica instrumental lo-fi Dartmouth
It would be facile of me to disagree with any of the former words – they’re all true. They’re also pretty cool muso-words, which is why the word Dartmouth stuck on the end made me snigger childishly.
Anyway – here, in Aux. Out, is a rarity: a solo artist who makes loopy, lo-fi song-sketches who also provides us with a photo of his own face. So few of them are willing to show-and-tell these days.
His songs are an indicator that music is like a snake eating its own tail: ever-shortening, re-experiencing itself in an increasingly rapid feedback loop.
So Basic Geography may well have been made with guitars and drums and the like – you know, the old-fashioned stuff – but its direction is influenced by the fiddly coils of ambient electronic music.
There’s almost something lazy about the sounds, dripping in weird patterns, as if under the influence of a non-human hand. Basic Geography is recorded on what, from the warm swathes of fuzz, sounds like an old TDK90 cassette.
For this simple act alone, I recommend Aux. Out wholeheartedly – he has found a supremely non-ironic, non-faux-nostalgic use for the humble tape cassette. It fits his acutely precise/loose songs just so. A dreamy end to the week.