Or You Could Just Go Through Your Whole Life And Be Happy Anyway: Bliss Out V.18

Jon DeRosa aka Aarktica is a composer and programmer, sings, and plays vocals, guitars, harmonium, and glockenspiel. For this release, he enlisted the help of friends Lorraine Lelis (of Mahogany) on vocals and one of the most innovative downtempo, ambient, IDM DJs in NYC, Aaron Spectre, on programming for a couple of tracks. Using orchestrated guitar drones and altered beats, Aarktica continues his effort to break down the wall between experimental/drone and modern classical. The result is an update on the sounds of Durutti Column, Slowdive, and Caberet Voltaire, as well as Ingram Marshall, Stephen Vitiello, and Pauline Oliveros. Jon DeRosa has also worked with Flare and records melancholy, country music as Pale Horse And Rider. A recent graduate of the Music Technology program at NYU, he studied composition with mentor Kenneth Valitsky, a former student of Karlheinz Stockhausen, in addition to working extensively in electronic music synthesis. “Excellent and gently lulling ambient/drone frequencies from Jon DeRosa, who combines guitars & electronics into a distinctly unified sound ala Seefeel but minus the beats & vocals. The icy, melodic aural terrain has a soft, introspective feel that conjures images of slowly enveloping fields of snow and trees swaying in a cold wintry wind. Just gorgeous work that’s well recommended.” --Godsend.