Whatever name he goes by, Porches’ Aaron Maine is a master of doling out sad songs. Now, he’s ditched his guitar.
Porches’ second effort sees Aaron Maine trading sun-drenched, jangly indie folk for danceable, submerged synth-pop
Chameleon singer-songwriter Aaron Maine, operating as Porches, is no newbie when it comes to crafting sad songs. Over the past six years, Maine has penned a slew of doleful ditties for his different outfits — Aaron Maine and the Reilly Brothers, Spaceghost Cowboys — and has also used the persona Ronald Paris.
But maybe Maine uses so many different band names and personas is to disguise the fact that Porches is really about him and his beardy, self-consciously quirky, New York indie pop aesthetic.
Porches witnesses his artistic growth from lo-fi indie-pop upstart on the 2013 debut LP, Slow Dance
in the Cosmos, to a deft practitioner of synth-laden sounds on Pool, swapping his out-of-kilter guitar sound for a synthesiser. Hardcore art school, that.
Released on indie label Domino (Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Caribou), Maine’s second album draws on the tedium of modern-day life and chronic malaise, subjects he is most likely very familiar with. As the title suggests, it’s centred on the theme of water. The opening track Underwater starts off with rippling synths and a conflicting thought: “Sometimes I see the vision/Sometimes you know I don’t.”
Braid is built on the post-party Balearic house beat that emerged in the mid-1980s and some cryptic lyrics about having “a dark muscle pumping the same, strange, blood”. Equally danceable, Be Apart finds Maine tackling an everyday conundrum of whether to go out and be sociable or stay in and be alienating. Here, the water imagery surfaces once again (“It’s got me so awake/The darkness hanging/Black water by my side/I will go out tonight”).
Mood echoes a similar sentiment (“Don’t know what I’d do/But I don’t want to be here/Don’t want to be here”) while the album’s highlight Car explores the notion of escapism with an infectious hook in which he forlornly cries “Oh, what a machine”.
We’re also treated to a series of mid to down-tempo numbers like Hour, Even the Shadow, Glow, Shaver and Shape. The last evoking the sort of weird and sinister vibes perfected by the now defunct Swedish electronic duo The Knife.
Maine tends to keep his words to a minimum, whether it’s the track names, which seldom exceed one word, or the actual lyrics. This minimalist approach can make the narratives sound monotonous and combined with his disengaged singing voice result in irritation rather than entertainment for the listener.
That said, however, Pool is still a welcome change from the run-of-the-mill, guitar-based indie records out there. Not only does it set him apart from his contemporaries, it’s also a testament to Maine’s artistic vision and his willingness to grow and expand.