AeTopus - Cup (CD)

Release Date: 10/20/23

Lush soundscapes from pulsing electronic sequences and traditional percussion

Named for the Zen parable of the Broken Cup, which teaches acceptance in the face of misfortune,Cup is a new album of solitude and celebration by veteran electronic music artist AeTopus(Bryan Hughes), and his first release on Spotted Peccary Music label. On Cup, AeTopus explores humanity's place in nature through a stunning synthesis of electronic beats and rhythmic structures combined with saturated ambiences of enduring beauty. Here, he captures the calm and wildness of the forest in thirteen tracks of complex time signature serenity, suggesting the solace found when, divested from external pressures, one embraces their own impermanence.

When composing, AeTopus builds lush soundscapes from pulsing electronic sequences and traditional percussion, then subtracts and subtracts from them. As a trained visual artist, AeTopus learned the value of negative space and applies that knowledge to these compositions. This approach leaves fragments of interlocking elements with simultaneous sparseness and complexity. 'Pure' ebbs and flows around an odd-meter beat, briefly interrupted by sylvan guitar. 'Glance' swells from a stuttering warble into a subtle, propulsive rhythm. 'Access' hypnotizes with its strobing beat, a darkly reflective counterpoint to the album's peacefulness. Ultimately Cup is a work of passion that demonstrates the artistic process throughout all the pieces with such refined, beautiful expression.

In AeTopus's own words: 'Cup is the product of my time in the natural world, and of the realization that the universe is scarcely affected by the triumphs, tragedies, and day-to-day lives of even the greatest of personalities, the mightiest of nations, or the most enduring of belief systems.' Cup is an album of exploration and acceptance, a celebration of our place in the cosmos, however small it may be.

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