EVA GEIST “Aquator System” (Elestial Sound)

An excellent entry into the wide world of synth music. It makes me remember the first time I heard Kraftwerk, that thrill of new sounds and textures. The artist manages to evoke the history of this music while still building a solid bedrock of new and innovative sounds. The album has excellent clean production values that really highlight the coldness of electronic music. Big warm bass contrasts nicely with the effervescent stabs and thick pads. Very dancey and fun. The artwork fits the music perfectly and I feel like what you see is very much what you get.

https://evageist.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/andreanoce
https://elestialsound.bandcamp.com/

- - Jeremiah Paddock

AAA “Fruit” (Elestial Sound)

Recorded in 2014 and released two years down the road, “Fruit” by AAA is described as electronic, jazz, cool jazz and smooth jazz and, well, it’s all that but a bit more adventerous at times as well. AAA, which is in actuality is one Chris Szombathy, a Canadian, is well-versed with both synth technique and layering to create within each piece a flowing melody that never strays too far from the initial concept yet remains interesting.

The ten tracks are all complimentary, but not derivative of each other. The production is excellent as is the packaging which is a jewel case with a multi-page full color j-card insert. This tape comes from Elestial Sound, an artist cooperative label based in Florida with a number of releases to their credit-and is only available in cassette and digital download formats.

For those who enjoy this style of music, this comes highly recommended.

www.elestialsound.com

-- Bob Zilli

EVA GEIST “Äquator System” (Elestial Sound)

Oh yes – this is music for European nomads. I’ve been told that somewhere. Where? Liners. Duh. On the Bandcamp. It’s where you learn everything. But European nomads is the vibe, and the vibe takes you along with it, on its journey, till you end up in Berlin at some co-op and you get involved in the underground electronic nightlife scene, which is all black and goth and nocturnal. It’s just how we understand Berlin, those of us who have never been there, and maybe even those of us who have been there as well. (I fall under the former category, unfortunately, so all my knowledge is secondhand.) But this Eva Geist character, whose real name is Andrea Noce (but no way of telling what she writes when signing in to a national park register), just sauntered into town one day with a laptop full of synthesized music that she just had to share with everybody, and we should all be wildly grateful that she did, because even though a majority of it is downtempo, there’s a lot to be said about the introspective quality of tunage of this stripe when it’s pumped into your headphones on cloudy winter days. Isn’t every day a cloudy winter day in Berlin? I spent many a cloudy winter day wandering around London, and Eva Geist’s music would have been perfect then. (She was probably still in junior high or something when I was in London.) I imagine Berlin takes on a similar aura. Each of Äquator System’s tracks wants to accompany you in its own way; each clamors for the rewind and repeat treatment, and I’d give it to them if I didn’t have to get on to the next track. “No, ‘Vernal Equinox,’ I love you and all, but I really have to push forward to the title track.” Dejected, “Vernal Equinox” sinks into the background, but hey, I’ll get back to it in a little less than a half hour. Because I’m going to press play again on this thing when it’s over, and I may even get into this European nomad spirit and jet off to the continent one of these days. Ah, who am I kidding – I’m an adult, those spur-of-the-moment post-university jaunts have to be relegated to the past. Too many things to plan these days. Kind of sad, really. I’ll live vicariously through Äquator System, then. It’s totally worth it.

Eva Geist

Elestial Sound

--Ryan Masteller

AAA “Fruit” (Elestial Sound)

Chris von Szombathy concocts future smooth jazz as if he were the Branford Marsalis of Vancouver. Wait, no was that Wynton? Turns out that neither brother is terribly smooth-jazz inflected, but that’s not a thing there, where Columbia House catalogs still come once a week and every penny-for-twelve deal heralds a musical Christmas morning but at much more frequent intervals. That’s right, 1990 never gave itself over to 1991, and life on the chill tip is constant and necessary. You wear colorful geometric sweaters for form and function, and the glistening colors of Miami late at night appear thousands of miles away without a hint of irony. At least that’s how it used to be. You can’t tell anymore. Here, friendly funk extends its hand for a personable interaction, and the hesitation that you feel before resigning yourself to immersion in the “true experience” is not uncommon. But it’s easy to forget once you’re under the spell of artists like von Szombathy, aka the man who made Fruit, the seventh in a series of recordings released under the moniker AAA. That’s the key – once you’re under the spell. Because once AAA casts that spell, it’s futile to escape the gravitational pull of chillaxed vibes. Stick Fruit in the player and you’re treated to an alternate reality where Steely Dan releases records on Adhesive Sounds. That’s a Venn diagram subsection you can get behind! Is any of this supposed to be taken seriously or sincerely? I’ll answer that question with another question: Who cares? It’s all labels and categories, style and surreality, and when it’s late at night and you’re a handful of cocktails in, it makes little difference. You can be the life of the party or you can dream within yourself, but, here again, you’ve still got that hand reaching out to guide you, and it turns out that the hand happens to be attached to AAA’s wrist. Don’t leave him hanging.

                 

AAA

Elestial Sound

--Ryan Masteller