Aquarelle

Minnesota’s Ryan Potts named his electro-acoustic project “Aquarelle,” or a drawing in transparent watercolors. His album Slow Circles is packaged in tracing paper and prints. All this layered translucence perfectly captures the aura of the album, an effort years in the making that came to fruition with diaphanous exactitude. With long drones and scraps of seductive melody, it unfurls a continual sense of appealing mystery and shifting, streaming color. Opening track “Brill” establishes the evolving template: A long, careful braid of variously pitched tones and far-flung segments of acoustic guitar flirt with inertia, but then flex together in a wavy pulse respiring with interference. At this moment, the track seems to quietly roar to life. Fans of Gas (or modern Gas disciples like The Sight Below) should find Slow Circles a worthy addition to the dreamscape.

Potts works in filtered flashes of acoustic and electronic sound, layering them in circular, overlapping phases, as his album title would suggest. But lots of people do that, and it doesn’t really give credit to the mojo with which Potts inhabits the familiar template. Through close attention, he breathes his drones full of sense and rhythm. “Everything Changes into Itself” is palpably bright and effervescent; a broad volley of lusty, extended chords scintillate with a rainbow of timbres, flecked with doleful acoustic strumming. The hissing tone waves of “A Good Egg” well up from a deep reservoir of silence. “Clementine” changes like an agitated mind, flickering, sinking into murk, divulging sharp epiphanic chimes. Its high shimmer flows directly into epic closer “In Days of Rust,” where metallic guitar textures glint through an intensifying cascade of liquid tone. It will be fascinating to see how closely Potts can recreate his micro-specific effects live, or whether he even tries. Regardless, expect to experience sound as a gentle, retiring caress. —Brian Howe