CD Review: A Violent Emotion, by Aesthetic Perfection
5
By Luxefaire
It is not a comment on society.
It is not a forum for philosophy.
It is not your new voice.
It is not a revolution.
Without form, without ego or intention,
Aesthetic Perfection is music without a cause.
Influences are combined, songs composed.
Audio is recorded, edited, arranged and mixed.
Music designed without purpose.
Daniel Graves.....Aesthetic Perfection
Far be it from me, as a listener and reviewer, to nay say the above. I am not even going to say But. Yet. Though I am going right now to look up the word confrontational. Ah here it is. I am confrontational too, I see. I think I am slightly less confrontational than I used to be though. Thats probably because I am a lot older than I used to be. OK. I will just deal with it, and be glad thats out of the way.
I have listened to a lot of crap in my life, though most times I am not so forthcoming about it. I do not want to ever foil, discourage, or Gott verbieten, even kill art. No, I would never do that. But the effort is sometimes a lot. A Lot. Its just my little cross to bear, here in this funny place where I exist, whose entrance was a v****a, of all things. I doubt if I will leave here in as good a position as when I came in, either. Too. Whatever.
Reiterating: I will never ever knowingly knock anything that even resembles art, and besides, there are many really fine artists @ Earth, its just that I listen to the really good ones so much I burn out on them. I am in the process of doing that now, with the music of Aesthetic Perfection, who is Daniel Graves, and who reminds me, as a talent, of Trent Reznor. Mostly because he is one guy, and only uses other talents live. Understand this too: when I first listened to Nine Inch Nails, it was very very different music. When I bought Reznors Pretty Hate Machine all those years ago it was a total gamble. I liked the name of the cassette (!) and I liked the name of the group, but there was no listening ahead of time, no internet, and certainly no pre-exposure by the insane clowns in mainstream media. I had to be one of the very first customers of NIN, and I was going out on a limb because there was just nowhere else to go; even back then I was totally fried on the nepotistic mediocre repititious redundant anti-intellectual BS pushed on the listening audiences of the world I lived in.
Yes that s*x, it s*x bad, but I fight, and I put as much effort into my fighting as I do in encouraging art. It literally takes pieces of me, gobs of flesh, to do this at times, too true.
What else is there though? Nothing. No Thing.
Please do not confuse my reference to Nine Inch Nails here...there may be some similarities between Reznors first effort and Violent Emotion, the second CD of Daniel Graves, aka Aesthetic Perfection, yes there are a few, but Aesthetic Perfection is so new and good sounding to these tired old ears that I am sitting here writing about it. And the test of tests: I BOUGHT the cd! I do not do that much anymore. Most times I am happy tracking down the things I like, which, because of the really crappy physical media over the decades, have all gone to heaven a few times at least. Mom dumped all the vinyl years ago, my Hawkwind, my Isao Tomita, my KRAFTWERK for Gotts sake...and then of course I fell into the trap, the literal PIT which anyone my age fell into, the ever present and ever deteriorating years of cassettes and 8 track tapes. I don't even want to think about all that. It is the most embarassing experience of my life. I sometimes pray to Gott and ask HOW DID I GET STUCK ON THIS BACKWARD BALL OF MUD ??? Just another cross to bear, here in the land of cruci-fiction and Fox news.
Back to Aesthetic Perfection, the band, and the CD "A VIOLENT EMOTION". I hear many oddly familiar things here too, things that were almost there 20+ years ago, but still growing: foetus, Boris Mikulic, 3 teens kill 4, Controlled Bleeding, Tones on Tail, Finitribe, SP, TKC, you know. All the once exciting stuff which I now know verbatim; the music that has become some sort of jaded calliope, now just the background music in my dreams. Daniel Graves adds another twist to this, a clarity and brightness which has been a long time coming, but no less powerful for all that. He has learned his lessons thoroughly, and his ear is professional and creative. He evokes and he elicits and he knows how and he does it well.
I'd been net surfing, just doing the lists, giving songs 15-20 seconds to impress me. Hardly any did. Then I got an Aesthetic Perfection. I let it play. I played another, then watched the video. It was The Great Depression. Then I heard Living the Wasted Life. That was the one. I went right to I-tunes and bought the CD, didn't think twice, been listening ever since. It is bad a*s, It is sick, It is the Illest, I cannot get over It. There are only two tunes I don't care for, and they are a nice contrast to the otherwise Buddha Bear Skunk Kind which is what the rest of the work reminds me of. There is just none better right now. And I know. Believe me. I know. The whole damned thing fills me with a glowing Schadenfreude I did not even realize was possible at this stage of the game. It is anti-despair. Thanks D, I don't care what it is or isn't, it is strength and you are generous.
Aesthetic Perfection is more than just rain in the desert, more than just food to a starving man: it is like having a friend jump into the fray as I am getting my butt kicked by 12 or 13 faceless stinking zombies all wearing nothing but puke green t-shirts emblazoned with two letters in dark purple-FM. The only negative to Aesthetic Perfections "A Violent Emotion" is the fact that the cd glaringly highlights the...ehhhhh...mediocrity to which my ears are generally subjected, and thats unpretty, but I am used to unpretty here in La La Land. It is the normal state of things in fact. Fortunately there are Deviations occasionally.
Violent Emotion helps Aesthetic Perfection Live up to its name!!!
5
By TheJadeMachine
I saw A.P. Live in Chicago not too long ago with Imperative reaction, and from the moment the singer told the crowd that he was going to do something different, it was like watching a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis.
This has to be, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the tastiest crow I’ve ever eaten. I did a review of A.P.’s last album and criticized the vocals, my primary complaint was that it was the same screech on every track, though I still believe that about the last album, I am so impressed by this one that what I’m typing for it will not do, how impressed I am with A.P.s evolution, any justice.
Aesthetic Perfection has become just that. The vocals, once lacking in range, have not only become powerful and diverse in delivery he actually sings on the album (well!!!). Never in my history of listening to music has a band gone, from the bottom of my list, to a close contender for my top 30 in such a short period of time; I simply can’t wait until the album after this one, because if this is the kind of improvement that aesthetic perfection makes from one album to the next, I can only imagine what the future holds for what in my mind, so far, is an amazing musical force.
Buy this album and if you can, and see Aesthetic perfection live. You won’t be disappointed.
