Jimi Hendrix, Prince, and hip-hop, deep beats and all the feels: AARØN‘s new EP “Feuer” is an audible orgy of emotion. The guitarist and songsmith is FM4’s Soundpark Act of the Month for June.
For some people, it’s like he appeared out of nowhere: in 2022, Lorenz Vak – aka AARØN – showed us how to unite a love of guitar solos with contemporary electronic R&B on his first single, “Manisch”. The producer Wandl provided washed-out beats and atmosphere – an interesting combination, as we heard live at Popfest Wien last year.
Jimi, hip-hop, and vocals
The extravagant guitar solo at the end of the song grabs your attention, making it clear which musical direction Lorenz is coming from: “I started out sitting at home and trying to play like Jimi Hendrix and all the other great guitarists. After that, I made a lot of hip-hop with a producer, but there, too, I mostly played guitar. I was in different rock bands, too, but none of them came to anything. I didn’t actually want to sing, but I never found anyone who sings the way I imagined it.”
And so he had to pick up the microphone himself. As you can hear on “Manisch”, AARØN is comfortable in the higher registers and likes breathing his soul-influenced timbre over the deep beats. That first single was about the ecstatic, drunken state brought on by a manic crush.
On the new EP, “Feuer”, we get to know other aspects of AARØN’s personality. The first single, “Magie”, cleverly incorporates a sample from the soul classic “I’ll Be Around”, with his love of Prince’s guitar stylings shining through. The vocals are no longer quite as drenched in soul; they’re starting to sound more like like Bibiza-style Austrian indie-pop. It’s a complex song, an interesting acoustic tapestry with plenty of details lovingly woven in.
This time, AARØN did most of the recording and producing himself, using just a mixing board, a drum machine, a guitar and his voice. With this stripped-down setup, Lorenz gave free rein to his spontaneous, intuitive, experimental side, trying to catch the magic of the moment. He loves it when music “just happens”, when the ideas “pass through you” on their way to the hard drive.
“Magie” is about a person who sleeps away the day, fights their way through the night, and seeks the magic in others, taking the Devil by the hand when they step on the dance floor – even when life doesn’t go the way you wish it would, you can still live in the moment.
the ecstasy of feelings
As with “Manisch”, AARØN still wears his feelings on his sleeve. He doubles down on the EP title, “Feuer”, with song titles like “Brenne” and “Kerosin”, giving us a pretty good idea of what his inner life was like when he was making the music. “When I started collecting demos,” he says. “I had a folder for them on my computer that I titled ‘alles brennt’ [everything’s burning]. At the time, I felt like I was burning inside. But generally, too – I felt like everything was falling apart. But when it came to the EP title, ‘alles brennt’ was a little too theatrical. I had a group of friends who ascribed an element to each of us – the one was water, the other earth, and to me they said: ‘you’re fire.'”
AARØN manages to pack this feeling into “Brenne”, a song that lasts less than two minutes. Where the home-recorded version sounds airy and light-hearted, with a swiftly played blues scheme, the live version with a full band has grown into more of a rock anthem. You notice how much is actually contained in a song that, on the surface, sounds pretty simple. He showed us how he does it at a recent FM4 session.
AARØN loves giving free rein to his emotions; you can hear it in every song. “Kerosin”, too, is rapturous: the echoing voice, the dark bass line, the simple drum loop, and the little guitar filigrees have an almost hypnotic effect. A world of sound in which you can lose yourself completely. And you never know what’s going to happen next – what guitar line might suddenly appear, then speed up, modulate, and disintegrate into the stratosphere.
After his EP release concert, AARØN’s going to be appearing with another act – he’ll be playing guitar on Bibiza’s summer tour. But until he returns to the stage at the head of his own band, we can get drunk on “Feuer”.
Andreas Gstettner-Brugger, translated from the German original by Philip Yaeger.