aaamusic | On 18, Mar 2011

Aaron Wright

Announced as tour support for Eliza Doolittle

Debut Album ‘Aaron Wright’ – out 4 April

Single: ‘Trampoline’ out 21 March

Sunday Times Culture, Hottest Download

“Pretty Special” There Goes The Fear

“Musically stands out from the pack…immediately impressive” The Line Of Best Fit

“A grand listening experience…an instant classic” Indie London

Aaron Wright has announced a busy touring schedule for March and April, around the release of his self-titled debut album on 4 April. Having supported The Charlatans on their acoustic tour of the UK through March, he’ll then take to the road for 11 dates with Eliza Doolittle. Wright will also release a single, ‘Trampoline’, on 21 March.

Wright has already carved out a formidable reputation as a live performer: he’s played rousing shows at Manchester’s In The City festival, Oh! Inverted World (Old Queen’s Head) and with The Vaccines in Edinburgh, as well as festival appearances at Glastonbury, Banicassim, T in the Park, Hopp Farm and Electric Picnic.

Aaron Wright sings and writes songs, but he is no run-of-the-mill singer-songwriter. There is an adroitness here, a pop lightness of touch, that elevates him beyond the usual folk troubadour fare. He was born to a Canadian mother and Scottish father, and developed an early love for quintessentially American folk (Neil Young) and classic British pop (John Lennon’s Beatles demos). Aaron moved from Canada to Edinburgh as a child, pausing only to run away to London, aged 15, to see a Simon and Garfunkel concert. He later dropped out of university, intent on throwing himself into music, and seemingly unable to function without it (he still doesn’t have a bank account, for instance).

Thankfully, Aaron was spotted two years ago by a new Glasgow-based label, DSet, who promptly signed him. They helped him record an album that feels inspired by early-70s Paul McCartney, Harry Nilsson or Ronnie Lane, together with the classic British and American greats on which he was raised. It’s all there on ‘I’ll Be Fine’, a harmonious and irresistibly hummable number, musically sweet but lyrically maudlin. ‘Go On Yer Self’, meanwhile, is an exhilarating mix of West-Coast harmonies, dramatic trumpets, and towering choruses. Throughout, a key part of the album’s charm and depth is Aaron’s voice (he started life as a guitarist, but having plucked up the courage to sing, had to learn to reign in his bellow). Now, it is a strange, comforting thing, as at home on the record’s brighter moments as it is the orchestral swell of ‘Middle Ground’ – written when he was just sixteen – or the brooding ‘Say You Love Me Still’.

The record also delights in a love for language, which is something of a passion for this English almost-graduate. Aaron often writes songs by connecting sounds, syllables, and stringing them together with the melodies: words aren’t preconceived, but frequently just tumble out. The results are dark and often tender, nicely contrasting the album’s more upbeat moments: on the otherwise-chipper ‘I’ll Be Fine’, for instance, lines include “my heart’s been shrinking like a violet…see we’ve been drinking, kinda violent.” On the likes of ‘Origami Me’ – in itself an accidental phrasing – things become even more experimental: “pur le de chantalie / pick up love and shoot it like a crossbow…well I can’t tell you from me / fuck them all we’ll taste just like an asbo”. We don’t quite know what it means either, but it’s further proof of an artist whose ‘singer-songwriter’ tag doesn’t really give him enough credit.

‘Aaron Wright’ is fleshed out and coloured in by something of a mini-orchestra, whose respective output neatly compliments Aaron’s sound: see Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake (bass/vocals) and Francis Macdonald (drums, vocals), Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell (vocals) and Nigel Bailie (trumpet), Steve Jackson of Belle & Sebastian on guitar, and Mick Cooke from B&S on horns/strings. But it’s very much Aaron Wright and his musical and lyrical voice that is behind the success of the record. At just twenty-three years old, he has made an album full of charm, ideas, and promise.

With The Charlatans:

9 March BLACKBURN Live Lounge
10 March NEWCASTLE Riverside
11 March LEEDS Brudenell Social Club
12 March STOCKTON Georgian Theatre
13 March MANCHESTER Deaf Institute
14 March STOKE Underground
20 March DUNDEE Doghouse
21 March GLASGOW Oran Mor

With Eliza Doolittle:

28 March GLASGOW ABC1
29 March NEWCASTLE Academy
30 March MANCHESTER Academy 2
1 April LEEDS University
2 April WOLVERHAMPTON Wulfrun Hall
3 April LEAMINGTON Assembly
5 April PORTSMOUTH Pyramid
6 April NORWICH UEA
8 April BRISTOL Academy
9 April LONDON Shepherds Bush Empire
12 April BOURNEMOUTH Academy