Aaron Smith: Momentum
Aaron Smith EP2
Aaron Smith’s music sounds so bucolic, so natural, that it encourages you to think of something beautiful, almost pastoral. The reality, though, is a little harsher. He grew up in the small Scottish town of Polmont, a kind of nowhere zone 50 miles outside of Glasgow.
The songwriter’s journey, his experiences of both love and trauma, fuel an incredible new EP. Picking up the guitar following a bout of friendly competition with his cousin, Aaron became infatuated with music; later, he discovered a makeshift studio in a dusty corner of his school’s music department, and began sketching out songs – simple, at first, but then more complex, more confident. “It wasn’t great, but it was workable,” he recalls. “I was self-taught, really. I wrote my first song when I was 14, put it on Facebook, and started from there. That’s how I discovered I could write songs.”
And these are glorious songs. His debut EP is the work of a bold, singular voice, one that wants to speak truths but also find as wide an audience as possible – it recalls Bon Iver but also Keane; it harbours the pensive approach of Ry X, but also the sheer will to communicate of Coldplay’s Chris Martin. “I want a sense of privacy. I want to do this in a way that’s cool, and not too out- there,” he comments.