Aan is an ever-evolving project led by singer/songwriter Bud Wilson. For well over a decade their music has waded through a primordial slurry of Art Rock and Experimental Pop, often lurching with calculated unpredictability into left turn ear worms. Aan consists of a 6-piece lineup with enough tones and textures to make even the most self assured sound person stress out. 

Wilson’s songwriting can be playful and jazz tinged, while the songs themselves usually forebode anxious dissociative frenetics and idiosyncratic delusions. Synthesizers smear the borders of Aan’s most recent work, with multiple guitars either dithering gently across the stereo field, or stabbing into its corners. Wilson’s mercurial vocals are backed by ribboned, warm harmonies, where the darker lyrical associations of purpose forfeiture and loss sound gentle and gauzy. This melange of beauty and despair is the hallmark of Aan’s continued output. 

About the album "Over the Mountain":

Over The Mountain is Aan’s fourth LP and second with Fresh Selects, Recorded and produced by Cameron Spies at Trash Treasury Studios in Portland, OR. OTM shutters and sways with tracks about soul-eating drugs, conjured evil spirits, lonely dogs, wildfires and trendy indie music so bland it makes a person want to give up even trying to create. Tracks like the lead single “Black Hole” portend the infinite universe knows all too well that it will eat itself. While “Speculum Aenigmate” reckons this knowledge is reason enough to sit back and enjoy the show. 

Aan relished access to vintage synths like the Korg Mono/Poly and Roland SH-2, as well as vibes to render swatches and clouds of sound. 

Acoustic piano on jilted towny-done-stupid “Cold Grey Eyes” hammers home the idiotic desperation of possessive masculinity as if Bowie’s Lady Grinning Soul were instead an anthem of ignorance. Album closer “Smile” envisions recapitulation of lost opportunities and the bottomless pit that is a loved one’s unspoken goodbye.  It’s as earnest a song as Aan has ever penned, with backing vocals gifted from Wilson’s since-passed former bass player and best friend. 

Over The Mountain is a sincere exploration of post-pandemic realities, the weird times at hand, and lives lived between mundanity and magic.