Aaron Roche is a composer, performer, songwriter and recording engineer. And a man after my own heart.

A multi-instrumentalist, he was a trumpeter in his father’s brass ensembles and, like myself, was a keen follower of the Eastman Wind Symphony as child. In fact, his first music samples involved his trumpet, recording music at nightfall into a Dictaphone.

!BLURMYEYES is the first of Roche’s releases on new label New Amsterdam Records. It was recorded and mixed by Roche during stays in Nashville, Los Angeles and Brooklyn and later mastered by Paul Oldham of PALACE. Roche since toured the EP’s release in August.

When this album made its way to my email inbox, I was confused. On paper, when an album is listed as “classical/folk/noise’, it gives an impression of incoherency: how would I be able to compartmentalise this in my mind? However, in an ethereal and melancholy manner, Roche with his song cycle successfully blends the realms of classical and folk in an avant-garde mix of pure, unadulterated noise and it is the apprehensive magic sourced by choice orchestration that enables this album to stand alone in character. Climatic trepidation roused by Roche’s haunting vocal contributions, heard especially in title track, !BLURMYEYES, deem his musical offering memorable. I almost tripped in my haste to sample his other prior releases, plainspeak and new record Cyclocardoray 7”.

Now, not many people would have heard of this up-and-coming visionnaire – be educated. Now.