ANY BIRDS, INDIAN SUMMER, THE DRIVE-IN, THE YEAR OF THE SNAKE, THE SIGNS OF LEO AND ALSO SCORPIO, WHITE NOISE, SYD BARRETT, POLAROIDS FOR PICTURE-TAKING, LINDA PERHACS, RUTHANN FRIEDMAN, JOHN MARTYN, BERT JANSCH, PINK FLOYD, KING CRIMSON, HELDON, THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS, SANDY DENNEY, THE PENTANGLE, VITAMINS AND MINERALS, TREES THE BAND AND ALSO REAL TREES, GENESIS, THE TWILIGHT ZONE,WE ARE WARRIORS ON THE EDGE OF TIME, BUCKINGHAM NICKS, THE MOON AND ALSO REAL SWISS CHEESE, SLOWW JAMMS, THE NIGHTFLY, HARD BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD, THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND, HEADPHONES FOR THE EARS (THE EARS FOR HEARING), SPECIAL HATS FOR THINKING, TODD RUNDGREN, RED APPLES AND GREEN, A'SITTING ON A GATE, TALES FROM THE DARK SIDE, TWINK THINK PINK, YES, AM GOLD, GRAND HOTELS, HALLOWE'EN, MEIC STEVENS, POPOL VUH, ICE HOTEL, BLACK LICORICE, POWER ANIMALS, TOMAS PENGOV, SOFT 70S, A WRINKLE IN TIME, THE BLUEBERRIES THAT I ATE AND ALSO BOOBERRY, WHEN I HEAR THE GRASS GROWING, A GIFT FROM A FLOWER TO A GARDEN, PANTHERS JUMPING OUT OF PYRAMIDS, ZED VISIONS OF DUNE AND ALSO PAUL ATREIDIES, MOTHER EARTH'S PLANTASIA AND ALSO REAL PLANTS(THE SECRET LIFE OF), ALPHA CENTAURI, PLANET B-6-12 AND OTHER PLANETS, BLADERUNNER, VAN DER GRAF GENERATOR, MUSIC FOR CAROSELS AND ALSO THE FAKE HORSES THE ONES WITH A HORN, SUPPER'S READY, SHIRLEEE COLLINS, WATER FOR DRINKING, AIR FOR SWIMMING, KEV'N AYERS, ROY HARPER, ROKY ERICKSON, PAUL MCCARTNEY AND WINGS, THE LIGHTS, THE NITE, THE DREAMWORLD, EROS AND MAD MAX.
Each night, as it passes from its waking state into the sleep-and-dream state, the brain spends some time in the alpha wave frequency. During this brief pit stop before sliding into actual sleep, the consciousness is momentarily bombarded by a rapid-fire barrage of vivid imagery and dream snippets. Boundaries of time and space collapse, and sprawling epics are sketched out in the span of a few breaths.
The black magic space folk of Aran Ruth seems to emanate from that same alpha wave ether; beamed to us, one reckons, by a phantom network of invisible AM radio towers. Her first debut appearance was Fright Night, an offering on Bellyache Records' Ghoul's Delight compilation for Hallowe'en 2007. Fantasy and storytelling have long been staples of acoustic music, and Ruth's songs certainly revolve on that axis.
But while Ruth's looking glass reality is cohesive, it's never predictable. She teleports wildly from one otherworldly setting to the next: Here, she hesitates on the steps of a dilapidated haunted mansion, there she observes the implosion of an alien sun, while overhead, in the show-stopping (and brilliantly-titled mini-epic) "Cast Your Ship Upon Rain" a lover departs and promptly dissolves into thin air while massive galleons glide by in the stratosphere. Ruth summons an impossible world into existence, then maps it out three minutes at a time.
Meanwhile, the world depicted in these songs feels distressingly unsafe. Everything is temporary in Ruth's songs; there's sunshine, but it casts tall shadows large enough to hide monsters. Voices murmur in dark cellars and there's safety in the clearing but black fuzz ogres lurk in the forest nearby. Beautiful-blue-sky melodies square off against Floydian-bad-trip storm clouds while Ruth moderates the conflict with the saucer-eyed detachment of a Martian May Queen or a lost, runaway daughter of the Manson Family.
Aran Ruth presents a new three-song single on Beehive Records. The record has two sides: Side 1 and Side A.
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