photo: Chantal Anderson
Los Angeles songwriter Aaron Beckum only needs a guitar and his voice to tell compelling tales on his new album Songs From A Triangle Room. As a director and composer of music for short films and commercials he knows how to get to the point within the space of a couple of minutes or less. He is a keen observer, with a sharp eye for the absurdities of his surroundings. He wrote Airport Cemetery Blues after spotting a graveyard nearby an airstrip and he turned it into a song people about trying to escape, only to be pulled back to the inevitable end. Flowers In The Vase is a contender for this year's best break-up song, scrolling through to the photos that his ex has posted on social media, concluding that "Your selfie has taken my place" and "You put me on the shelf, next to flowers dead in the vase."
Beckham apparently apparently has some issues with the ubiquitousness of smartphone use in general. In Born Forlorn he contemplates the possibility of throwing it into the toilet: "flush it out to the deep blue sea and I let it settle on the bottom of the ocean. And you can send me texts I'll never see". He tries to drown his sorrow in a Whiskey Pyramid, holed up in the triangle room that became the title for superb collection of lo-fi folk songs.
Recorded in a couple of weekend with Jason Lylte lending hand as the producer, Songs From A Triangle Room puts Beckum on the map as a versatile wordsmith. It's a far cry from the superficial glamour of commercials that pays for his room and board. He is so brutally honest that it hurts. A side career on the Americana circuit is something he should look into.
Songs From A Triangle Room is released via Devil in the Woods (digital, 180 gram 12" turquoise blue vinyl cut at 45 rpm).
Tracks:- Mountains
- Born Forlorn
- Airport Cemetery Blues
- Jagged Coast
- Obsolete
- New Moon Night
- Flowers In The Vase
- Whiskey Pyramid
