Aranos - Mother of Moons Bathing [Soleilmoon - 2007]Mother of Moons Bathing flits, jumps and dodgers between been quirky/ bizarrely comical, darkly sinister and airless, noisy, cranky ‘n’ surreal and mysterious/ expansive- an hell of an ride really. I’ve only heard bits ‘n’ pieces of Aranos solo work in the past all which I've found very agreeable, but never seem to have had a chance to get acquainted to it in full.Though I did highly enjoyed his collaboration with NWW on Santoor Leena Bicycle. So it’s great to finally hear and take in a whole album worth of his work,and what an album it is Aranos mangers a large amount of different musically and sonic disciplines with great competence and effectiveness. We have the dada sneering jiving meeting of ;groovy bass lines, demented barber shop singing and sawing violins of New Boy friend. The fearful and surreal sound collage of Some Clowns Are Not Funny that mixers; gong tones, downpours and sea wash sounds, jarring and set your nerves on edge sawing, pulling and whining. Or the expansive/ dark and eastern tinged drone, gong tones , flute and violin charm of Invisibility Cloak Of Time, with it’s near on twenty minute unfold that feels like a strange trek through a purple and yellow dusk tinged desert- that’s beautiful yet slight sinister. And to top it off it’s packaged in a lovely & arty brick red silk-screened soft-textured folder with a pair a sparkly screen-printed inserts inside, but it’s sadly only ltd to 400 copies- so don’t hang about. An very rewarding release both musically and visual showing that Aranos is an highly talented and imaginative performer. Roger Batty
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