Schnipper’s Slept On
- story THE FADER
Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it’s the Aaron Ross’ Shapeshifter. Listen to “Mama Lonely Wolf” from the album below, buy it here and read about it after the jump.
In issue 48, Ross Simonini said that Aaron Ross “builds collages of fat Band of Gypsys riffs, reverb-drenched ambience and campfire wailers, all while retaining his soulful melodies and from-the-gut lyricism.” I don’t remember reading this, I just remember a really big picture of a guy with a thick neck who I thought was bald wearing a weird hypercolor windbreaker sitting on a couch throwing a baby. I was like, Who would let that weird dude throw their baby? I wasn’t like, Wow this folk music sounds jamming. But I should have been both. I should have been like, Babythrowers are going to run shit in the upcoming folk music renaissance. But I can only get so much right.
Actually, Aaron Ross has not been running anything. I went to see him at Mercury Lounge and less than any people showed up. I saw him, but my presence counted negative somehow. So did everyone else’s. There was a vortex of people and the only thing actually present in the room was his googly warble. In person, he doesn’t have a particularly commanding presence, just a guy in jeans and a sort of ugly striped sweater. He isn’t even bald. His skin is still somewhat thick, at least. But not as chockfull as his voice. He played solo, sitting on a chair with an acoustic guitar. There is nothing entirely remarkable about his guitar playing; it sits as simply a conduit for his singing. Ross has an ancient voice, the kind you’d find with dinosaur bones at an archaeological dig. You would break the bone with a tiny pick and then his voice would waft out, hidden like marrow since the Paleozoic. “So bury the hatchet, we all come from trees/ One by one we return with the leaves,” he sings on “Mama Lonely Wolf” and that seems like a worthy creation myth from his mouth, wizened and endlessly expansive.
There is something forever enticing about people with weird voices. I would give anything to open my mouth and not have regular garbage voice to come out. I wish I sounded stunted, stuttered, deep or gruff. I would not choose high pitched, but it’s an option. As it is, I sound very middle. Aaron Ross, he must buy Tic Tacs at the gas station and make clerks weep when he tells them he doesn’t need a bag. So maybe it is the similarly unremarkable sounding public that has ignored him for the sake of spite. Is this a common dream? Does Ross know? Someone should tell him. I wish the best for him, but maybe only because I can’t have it for myself.
Related:
- NYC: FADER Presents Grass Roots at Mercury Lounge
- Schnipper’s Slept On
- March Is Schnipper Month: C
- Schnipper’s Slept On
- Schnipper’s Slept On
- posted on Apr 8, 2008 in MP3 / STREAMS
- tags Aaron Ross, psych/folk
