Aaron Taylor: Momentum
Aaron Taylor x Icarus
After a series of EPs, now comes Aaron Taylor’s eagerly awaited album. Recorded in his own studio at home (“It’s just a little humble room – I’ve still got one of my wardrobes in there”) Icarus is about intimacy in its various forms. “It’s about wanting to be closer to someone or something – possibly even at your peril,” reveals Taylor. The 11 tracks about desire and longing in relationships, career and spirituality now seem somewhat bittersweet after the age of social distancing. “It’s really weird,” admits Taylor of the uncanny timing. “It’ll resonate so much more.”
Since he was a kid, Taylor has been obsessed with the ancient Greek myth that gives the album its name. The son of the craftsman Daedalus – builder of the Labyrinth – Icarus was given a pair of wax and feather wings by his father in order to escape imprisonment in a tower. But he ended up drowning in the sea when the sun melted them and he fell from the sky. “I always felt like Icarus got a bad rap,” explains Taylor. “He just wanted to be free.”
The protagonist on Taylor’s debut feels much the same way, shooting for the sun but unafraid of the consequences on the sweetly soulful, propulsive opening track ‘I Want That Fire’, which bristles with an old school Neptunes energy.
The award is supporting the making of Icarus as well as the marketing plan surrounding the release.