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Music

Aaberg Is the Cassette-Indie Songwriter of Your Haziest Dreams

The London-based singer-songwriter's new video for "Kroesel," taken from his debut LP 'Albatross,' is as grainy and surreally graceful as his music.

Albatross, Hunter Mockett's new album as Aaberg, develops as slowly as a sepia photograph in a darkroom. It opens with soft, tape-twisted guitars and rests on patters of condensed drum lines. It all seems desperately quiet until Mockett's muffled half-whisper of a voice drifts in. Eight songs in, on "Mask," the electrics cut out, leaving Mockett with static white noise, buried birdsong, and a mix so uncluttered that you can finally pick out words like "alone," "shadows," and "lost." It makes a second listen-through that much darker. Recorded straight to cassette, it's what we're all calling a "bedroom pop" record in 2018. But Mockett's bedroom seems to have been dimly-lit and silent, somewhere in the middle of London.

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The third track on the record, "Kreosel," is one of the album's brighter moments, though Mockett doesn't have the sunniest memories of its composition. "'Kreosel' was put together towards the end of the album," he wrote in an email to Noisey this morning. "I was right down in the depths of recording, hadn’t seen anyone for a while and was losing it a bit. I think that’s when the best stuff comes out."

The video for the song, which we're premiering at the top of the page, was directed by Margot Veloski, and it's as odd and grainy as the record itself. "Margot is a close friend who was around during lots of the experiences that fed into Albatross," Mockett wrote. "Once the album was done she told me about an idea she had for a video revolving around this conflicted character. I thought it was great so she, my friend Henry and I put the video together in a couple of days."

You can buy Albatross over at Aaberg's Bandcamp page for about the price of a couple of chocolate bars.

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