Lary Hoffman is the consummate DC musician.
He has fronted a couple of bands, flirted with major record labels, genre hopped, been nominated for a WAMMIE, switched instruments, runs his own record label (DC electronics), has a sexy, rock `n' roll night job to hold it all together (tending bar at the Galaxy Hut in Arlington, VA), and sports a fine hair cut. His latest musical project, Aerialist, will release its second album later this summer.
About three years ago, Hoffman sang and played guitar in Five State Drive, a catchy indie-rock trio. Their albums are still available from the Screaming Goddess catalog. At their height, they were in negotiations with Chrysalis Publishing to sell some of their songs for a tidy sum. But their A&R contact got the axe, the bass player walked, and Hoffman started to learn the keyboards.
Perhaps due to genuine interest, perhaps due to savvy market awareness of the impending commercial demise of indie rock, Hoffman walked away from post-collegiate guitar rock and into new wave sonic pop.
He did so in very good hands. He recruited Michael Ivey (Basehead, Lazy K) to program and help produce the first (and self-titled) Aerialist album.
(Note: In this town there are certain producers/musicians who are assumed by bands and critics alike to have Midas-like qualities. This fleeting status currently graces people like Ian Mackaye, J. Robbins, and Michael Ivey. It's a strange and twisted phenomena that negates such disasters as Lazy K's "Ass-watcher", but very real.)
The first Aerialist project was built upon a series of drum loops sampled from Stevie B. Treichel (also of Five State Drive) and layered with Ivey's rhythm tracks and Hoffman's keyboards and melodies. The album was released in 1998.
Following the release of the first album, Hoffman reunited with Treichel and started working up a live version of Aerialist. And out of this live version of the band comes the next (untitled) album due out on DC electronics this summer featuring only Hoffman and Treichel.
The first album is a complex albeit comforting collection of sonic effects and rhythmic patterns that create a sort of textural cathedral for the listener. (Humor me when I say it has flying buttresses of sound). Hoffman himself sheepishly compares it to Neu! and Silver Apples but at times, merely by virtue of convergent evolution, it sounds like Ween's Pure Guava (without so much psycho-psilocybian) or like early Tall Dwarf's projects. I resist the comparison to DC's Trans Am for reasons of geography.
The first album benefits greatly from Ivey's master touch on rhythms and production and Hoffman's catchy melodies and economic lyrics. The album has an eager yet confident aura to it, down to the ultra-DIY laser printed packaging. And Hoffman affects a strange don't-wake-the-neighbors vocal quality that makes the album sound extremely personal and almost secretive.
The album zig-zags from trance-y, minimalist psychedelica to basement New Wave. Its highlights are the swirling, trippy depth of "Feel the Sun," the inviting introductory meditation of "Take a Moment to Breathe," and the risky, jazzy closer "Fifth Base" (perhaps a reference to the Five State Drive/Basehead axis).
The second (untitled) album finds Hoffman and Treichel with a year's worth of growth but without Michael Ivey's ear candy. And while Ivey's absence is noted, Aerialst is no worse off. What compensates for the loss is Hoffman's increased understanding of the keyboards and while the production is generally simpler, the song writing is more complex.
Hoffman's vocal projection improves on the second album which gives the over all impression that the band has left the living room sofa and gone on stage. The album has playful and charming electronic moments that sound like the ultimate 70's planetarium sound track. The keyboards are lifted out of the mix and brought forward atop Treichel's eager drumming which emphasizes the unique textures they have to offer. Hoffman plays three vintage keyboards on the album, one newer, digital keyboard, a tamboura, a melodica, and a guitar.
The highlights of the second album are the watery, drone-y, far eastern, funk of "Shputnick," the almost satirical, electronic pop of "What If We?" (available free at MP3.com/aerialist), and the Devo-esque electronic journey of "Just One More Time." The overall strength of the second album is a clear and consistent vision of the band's identity and purpose which enhances the execution and production through out.
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