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Aquarelle, "Sung In Broken Symmetry"
This album marks the promising debut of Students of Decay's subscription series, which also features artists like Danny Paul Grody, Dani from Celer (Chubby Wolf), and Chihei Hatakeyama.  Aquarelle is not currently as well-known as some of the other artists in the series, but this album should go a long way towards remedying that.  Ryan Potts' work shares some common ground with grit-heavy ambient artists like Tim Hecker, but his unusual combination of sculpted hiss, melody, and organic instrumentation is very much his own.
I have been hearing a lot of albums lately in which the opening piece completely eclipses everything after it and Sung In Broken Symmetry fits comfortably in that odd trend: "With Verticals" embodies everything that is wonderful about Aquarelle's music.  The piece is built around rhythmic washes of static crashing over a pleasantly twinkling drone, which is a textural delight.  The magic, however, lies in the details–the glittering notes submerged within the white noise waves, the way the static seems to rush together right before Brandon Wiarda bows his cello, etc.  Potts' use of static here is pretty remarkable, creating the illusion that entropy is cohering into order, then breaking up again  All that wouldn't matter as much if the piece were purely abstract and experimental in nature, but the languid cello creates some beautiful and poignant harmonies with both the underlying drone and itself.  When all of Potts' areas of expertise come together in one place, the result is extremely impressive.
The remaining three pieces don't quite replicate that level of synergy, but they are still pretty enjoyable.  "A Strange Sweet Woe" follows the template closest, only it lacks Wiarda's cello or a strong pulse.  Instead, it takes the shape of a roiling ocean of distorted shimmer that gradually ebbs to make room for a somber guitar and piano outro.  On "Origin," Potts' lap-topped guitar maintains a warm hum beneath gusts of shifting static that sound like leaves rustling in a strong wind.  Wiarda and his cello make an unexpected return near the end though, resulting in a strange interlude of moaning and sliding strings.  The album ends with "The Blue Light Was My Baby," which begins with a fragile and hesitant acoustic guitar (or banjo?) that gets quickly engulfed in a treble-heavy roar before returning for a lazily strummed coda.
That final piece highlights a few of the small flaws that are preventing Potts from realizing his full potential, as he is a bit too heavy-handed with distortion and treats his acoustic guitar like something of a sacrificial lamb to be consumed by a wall of noise.  Also, it seems like the raison d'être for the piece is the display of power and that not much effort was devoted to crafting an appealing hook or melody to counterbalance it.  Given that Ryan's two greatest talents (artfully obscuring his music with chaos and creating warm, autumnal drones) are pulling him in opposite directions, though, I suppose it is no surprise that he occasionally errs too far on one side.  It's certainly a difficult balance to achieve, but Ryan hits the mark here more than he misses.  Also, I always wish albums made more effective use of the textural properties of acoustic instruments and focused more strongly on melody, so Aquarelle is in pretty illustrious company.  The key things here are that Ryan has a distinct aesthetic and that "With Verticals" is an absolutely perfect song.  Not many albums can boast that.
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