VOTD 2/26/2023

 Aaron Dilloway: Modern Jester (Hanson)

Purchased at the Exchange

I'm tired today for a variety of reasons, but I have the house to myself. As I've written before, it's not that I worry about what I'm playing on my stereo when my wife is at home, but it's easier not to have to explain it sometimes.

I remember the days of cassette micro labels, often run off one by one at home. You might find a review or listing in OP magazine (later splintered in the more underground Sound Choice, and the longer lasting and more commercial Option), send a couple of bucks to a PO box and see what comes of it. Or, maybe some of them were carried by RRRecords. 

I released a couple of very limited items myself, just because it was a convenient way to do so. I didn't need the expense of pressing something into vinyl or later CD, and online services didn't exist at the time.

Listening to Aaron Dilloway's double LP makes me think of those days. I'm certain his equipment is much more sophisticated than most of what was used by mid-80s experimental noisemakers. I don't know much about Aaron. His name is coming up more often for me, he's highly prolific, an original member of Wolf Eyes (who I guess were just here in Pittsburgh; I was busy), and he's released quite a few things to cassette. In a previous post, I wrote about his project Spine Scavenger, a more minimal synth project.

Here, he's pulling out many things I associate with (quasi-)industrial noisemaking. There are plenty of loops, often unidentifiable in origin. There are backwards recordings. Some field recordings, or at least the sound of non-instruments being moved around or struck. Noisy synths(?).

So much of what we used to call industrial music (I'd include power electronics in that list) is pretty humorless. If the intention is to do something dark, disturbing, reflect the brutalities of life, then I get it. Sometimes I can't take it too seriously though, and apparently neither does Aaron. "Every second of this recording contains subliminal messages" the back cover reads. 

Then there's the other quote on the back cover (written inside quotation marks): "People could screw up - you expected them to - but machines are made of finer stuff. They're not supposed to begin talking, in a new voice, out of the blue, about death and weird shit like that." The source of that quote isn't provided, but this was made long before the news about ChatGPT started happening. 

I guess Aaron is based out of Oberlin, OH? Something that again speaks to the cassette micro-labels I remember, in all sorts of obscure locations. I guess some people would say that about Pittsburgh. And he has a small, part time record store? Naturally I want to visit some time.

He must be pretty serious about these things though, regardless of the humor. Pressing this into a colored vinyl double LP isn't a small commitment. Do I like it? Sometimes yes, sometimes it's hard to say. I think I need to sit on this one more.