With a background in guitar and piano, Eric Saak has gone electro-kinetic via his EP Aural Motion. He has spoken of using electronic music as a vehicle to “experiment with many different layers of sound.”
Indeed the EP evinces a creator’s fine sense of both structure and style. Though there are multiple layers, there are no unnecessary sounds. Aural Motion definitely has motion, but it always avoids chaos.
Yes, Saak’s motion has agility. He paints graceful sonic brushstrokes. With the track “Float,” he draws on his piano roots to lay down an elegant keyboard score. Notes fall like rain drops. Perhaps the listener is meant to “float” along the song’s current.
With “Simple Song” and “Through the Myth,” he lays low on the keyboard and emphasizes the percussion. Though the beats are not especially fast-paced, they do have some spike, along with unpredictability.
On “Above the Below” there are disparate sounds emerging from multiple directions, but the track retains coherence throughout. As the keyboard subsides, a formidable synth buzz swarms about; and the EP concludes with an almost Reznor-like aura. Indeed a suggestion of danger runs ghostlike through both this track and “Through the Myth.”
Saak may be from Oklahoma, but his tunes bring enough urban bounce for a Tribeca excursion. I suppose it makes sense that a hip tune depends more on the creator than the creator’s location.
With an almost unremittingly kinetic tempo, the EP sure behooves its title. There is dynamism, but nothing frantic or desperate about these five tracks. Rather, they evoke the mystical and the haunting.
Conveying emotion without a single lyric can pose a challenge, one which Saak appears to embrace. Like some chemist mixing elements in the lab, he relies on his own precise assemblage of notes.
A graphic designer by trade, Saak is a maker of digital paintings. Now he ventures in digital song. Is there a secret link between visual style (of shape & color) and aural style (of rhythm & melody)?
Go forth and speculate: http://soundcloud.com/ericsaak
Then get your five bucks’ worth at:
https://itunes.apple.com/album/aural-motion-ep/id588588116?v0=9988&ign-mpt=uo%3D1
Ray Cavanaugh – owleyesgatsby@yahoo.com
