Aarktica - Pure Tone Audiometry
(Silber)
Backward tape loops, an ethereal wordless vocal duet with Lorraine Lelis reminiscent of His Name is Alive's Livonia, and rhyming "pure tonography" with "oceanography" are some of the highlights of "Out To Sea," the leadoff track on Jon DeRosa's third full-length under the name Aarktica. "The Mimicry All Women Use" adds a normal vocal track that will be more familiar to DeRosa's other project, Dead Leaves Rising. His relaxed, late-night, sexy vocals reminded me of Richard Baskin's soundtrack for "Welcome To L.A." (well worth seeking out, by the way). A lengthy, full-band jam, "Mimicry...," will also be a surprise to fans of Jon's debut, No Solace in Sleep (also on Silber), which was a completely ambient, guitar-based solo effort.
"Snowstorm Ruins Birthday" is closer to those ambient effects and is an excellent example of "glass music"—the sound made by running the index finger around the rims of glasses filled to various levels. The harmonics thus created are determined by the amount of air displaced by the liquid in each glass. Now I'm almost positive this is not how DeRosa created these sounds (almost all of his music is guitar-based and the by-now familiar "absolutely no synthesizers were used in the recording of this release" parental advisory applies), but you get the idea of what to expect. It's a relaxing technique that warms the blood and the heart, although I don't think there's been any tests on any correlation between the brand (and proof!) of liquid used and the resulting harmonics!
A more traditional song structure suits DeRosa well on "Ocean," a gently whispered love song that will appeal to fans of Bill Callahan/Smog. An interesting arrangement/production decision is made halfway through. Up to this point, it sounds like the song is emerging from a radio-then we edit to the "studio version," thus enhancing the song's immediacy. I also applaud Molly Sheridan's mournful violin playing.
The title of the album refers to the audio test administered to measure one's hearing sensitivity (DeRosa is deaf in one ear), and it comes into play frequently throughout the recording with very quiet spoken-word segments in the background of both "Out To Sea" and "Big Year." It also results in a hearing test of your own, crossed with one of those subliminal recordings you would listen to help you calm down or improve your driving techniques, etc. Since the tests are administered with headphones, this is best appreciated thusly and is one of the best "headphone albums" in recent memory. This allows the listener to pick up sounds and nuances that might have otherwise been missed. And knowing what DeRosa is doing, I began to question my own hearing abilities: Am I hearing things that aren't really there and vice versa? Am I missing things that are there? That challenge of hearing things that aren't there vs. not hearing things that are makes it a very educational experience which questions the entire concept of "listening" and "hearing." But that's not to suggest this is a clinical, antiseptic recording. On the contrary, it's very warm and tender, with strong melody lines, particularly the lengthy "Ocean" and "Big Year."
The source of the sounds you listen to on a record is also examined on "Water Wakes Dead Cells." Could that be a heartbeat... a vibrating eardrum... or the industrial machinations that went into creating those sound effects in the warehouse scenes of David Lynch's "Eraserhead" where our hero makes the erasers? Or, just as easily, is it none of these? I don't think identifying the actual source is as important as the fact that it could be any, none, or all of these. In keeping with the analysis of the perception of sound and the experience of listening and hearing, the fact that a single sound could be produced from a myriad of natural causes, or created or manipulated in the recording studio in the mixing/engineering/production process is key to what's going on here.
At 12 1/2 minutes, the finale, "Williamsburg Counterpoint" (DeRosa lives in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn in NYC) goes on twice as long as necessary, but the first half is a lovely, ambient guitar piece worth hearing at least a few times. In closing, let me just suggest you rush out and pick this up and decide for yourself: is it live or is it DeRosa's studio-enhanced vision of what "sound" sounds like. In light of his expertise at recreating the limited "sounds" that he can pick up, this truly is the sound of one ear hearing. For students of the act of creating sound and lovers of those creations alike, Pure Tone Audiometry is an essential listening experience.
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