Artist: Aaron Cooper
Links:
https://www.facebook.com/aaroncoopermusic
http://aaroncooper.bandcamp.com/
Aaron Cooper has been a favorite of
mine since he let me stream his “Three Cheers for Enlightenment”
on a related music site's SoundCloud. And I'll tell you, his
experimental folk stuck out like a sore thumb among the hours of
great but contemporary-sounding Chicago music. The difference in
sonic signatures was roughly that of Hank Williams (1923–1953)
dueting with a Hank Jr. vocal that was recorded some forty years
later [for the 1989 hit cover of Hank's own “Tear In My Beer”].
As I dug deeper, I discovered in Cooper
an artist who had not only found his sound, but also flocks with
other birds of a feather. And so I just had to stream his ditty with
Dwain Story, whose memorably unique vocal on “Ode to Camp Hate”
is as singular as Cooper's own – instruments from another era, they
are.
But Cooper uses his lyrics to place
squarely in the present his throwback production and vocal treatment.
Yes, on “Three Cheers” Cooper sings about loose change, which is
per se quaint; but he also raises the specter of resentment. On
“She's Gotta Hit the Road,” Cooper gets busy name-checking Little
Joe, fried chicken, and dollar tips – meanwhile, Mama's got a
needle in her arm. Now contrast these with Hank's topics of choice:
being lonesome; crying.
Artists invest everything in creating a
corner of the musical world that's unquestionably their own. Few are
successful at it. Kurt Vile comes to mind. So does Aaron Cooper.
*** The author of this review,
William Brown, plays the handpan for the following band:
http://youtu.be/tMS73-1kCr8
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