Music Blog: The Lulls In Traffic

There is nothing that excites me in music more than finding out that Aaron Marsh has a new song or project out. He’s talked about The Lulls In Traffic, his side-project from his band Copeland for years, and though we’ve seen a few snippets here and there, a full release hasn’t been in the cards until now. This project is a collaboration with Ivan Ives, a lyricist from Los Angeles.

The first track we’ve heard is “I Can Hear Your Laughter On The Wind” which is the video above. It starts with a strange glitchy 30 seconds before getting into the full song, something that sounds a lot like Copeland’s last release, and my favorite modern album, Ixora. If anything I would say this has a more electronic and less symphonic bent to it, as with Copeland, Marsh appears to make more of an effort to have a “full band” sound.  The Lulls by contrast is more of a stripped down, digital, looped feeling– all with Marsh’s trademark elegant production. It reminds me a little bit of his last side-project Anchor & Braile, with Anberlin’s frontman, a highly underrated album.

“I Can Hear Your Laughter On The Wind” opens with a piano lick and Marsh singing and builds from there with electronic and real drums layering in as the song goes on. It really highlights the haunting lyrics that I assume come from Ivan Ives. They’re very heartfelt and the delivery by Marsh drips with emotion, as his vocals tend to do. I can’t do much more analysis on that without a lyric sheet, but from what I heard, I’m impressed. I would say that these lyrics delve more into more standard poetry and less with the pop hooks that we’re used to in Marsh’s own lyrics, but at the same time, it compliments the style very well, and I think these two artists are very much on the same page in terms of their poetic acumen.

I love how the song crescendos into a little glitchy electronics and with the vocals growing in intensity. This is something that I definitely could throw on in my headphones on repeat while I’m writing, which is about all I want out of music. 10/10 for this song at least. I look forward to hearing the rest.

The Lulls In Traffic – Rabbit In The Snare can pre-ordered  here: http://www.shopbenchmark.com/thelullsintraffic/  I have already. It releases May 22nd.