Description
Label Review.
2018 album.
Our Overview.
‘The House’ is New York musician Porches (a.k.a Aaron Maine) third full-length album and is a conscious effort in minimalism and honesty. "Making Pool”—the band’s 2016 breakthrough record, and Domino debut—“I learned how valuable the spirit of the demos are,” says singer Aaron Maine, “so this time I made a point of capturing a song the day it was conceived.” Because of this desire to document immediate sensations, the record’s fourteen tracks offer a series of diaristic vignettes. The 14-song affair features contributions from (Sandy) Alex G, Dev Hynes, Okay Kaya, Maya Laner (True Blue), Bryndon Cook (Starchild & The New Romantic), Cameron Wisch (Cende), and Maine’s own father Peter Maine. Today, The House offers the new single “Find Me”, an icy track with lyrics touching on anxiety, escape and isolation. Watch the video, co-directed by Maine and Nick Harwood.
The House was written and recorded over an 18-month stretch, immediately following the completion of Porches’ breakthrough record Pool. Taking a diary-like approach, Aaron documents a period of time through the 14 gorgeous songs on this record.
Says Aaron Maine, on The House: “The House is a diary. The House began immediately with a sense of urgency. A different kind of urgency than I had experienced previously when writing songs. I wasn't sure exactly what this meant while it was happening, but it felt necessary to embrace it.
“The songwriting became an exercise in documenting my immediate experiences, which writing has always been for me to a certain extent, but something particular was compelling me to try to portray these moments in a more linear way. Writing this record was a form of meditation, an escape, a routine - selfish at times, as it became an excuse to avoid my immediate surroundings.
“Half the time, I still won't understand what was going on in my head when I listen to a song I wrote - even months later - but things seemed to be changing fast, and writing these kind of vignettes was soothing to me, a way to kind of slow down time. I don't think I was necessarily working through anything during the process of writing, if anything maybe avoiding that, but the album has become something different to me in hindsight: a way to look back at a time in my life and see my guts at play. To try and understand what was going through my head as I slid these songs out is an interesting experience, sometimes exciting, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes still totally confusing. I am happy to have these 14 songs in one place to look back on and stumble through and hopefully learn something from, and I am excited to share them with you.”
As with Pool, Aaron brought his recorded work to Chris Coady (Beach House, Slowdive, TV on the Radio), who then mixed The House at his Sunset Sound studio.