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AeTopus — Iota
(Spotted Peccary no#, 2025, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-03-17

Iota Cover art

Based in the Seattle area, AeTopus (Bryan Hughes) is a composer and electronic sound sculptor. Iota is the follow-up to 2023’s Cup, his second album for Spotted Peccary Music and his twelfth recording overall. By comparison, the new album is a bit more relaxed and gentle, conjuring imagery and introspection, respite and suspension, full of dreamy hypnotic beauty and lush atmospherics. There are percussive elements, low drum sounds, sequenced bells and mysterious muted chattering and sequences, all joining the colorful sweeps and washes that form a formidable undercurrent for the album’s twelve tracks. This isn’t Berlin School, nor is it your typical floating ambient sound, but elements of both do inform Hughes’ compositions, which tend to steer clear of any easy categorization. This is something that would lend itself well to headphone listening in a nearly darkened room or even outdoors under stars, far away from the edginess of life in the city or busy tendrils of the workaday world. “Level” offers a gentle swirling swell of sonic activity, full of unusual rhythms and brisk arpeggiations, though never overwhelming the listener; from a dark growling undercurrent, “Mohhu” grows slowly with odd mysterious sounds paving the way forward. If one listens to these soft pieces waiting for them to erupt like a volcano, it generally won’t happen — each piece sets its own pace near the beginning and elaborates further along its trajectory, but it’s going to follow its own unique lifestream, combining sound, imagery, and imagination treading lightly into a beautiful new universe. Things just happen unexpectedly, and can be appreciated for whatever they are and wherever they may lead. “Subsystem” is like a portal opening into a wonderworld of psychedelic beauty and unusual sounds, without cadence of any kind, the percussive elements exist as near random events; one of the more lighter and brighter pieces is the appropriately titled “Sunny,” though it still seems cloaked in mystery. “Why Not Now” plays with a gentle floating groove of bassy tones and atmospherics that jump in and out of the fabric of the piece, while closer “Decima Milia” percolates with stunning and warm precise colorful beauty. There are plenty of inventive sounds herein to discover, and it’s not like anything else.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): AeTopus

More info
http://aetopus.bandcamp.com/album/iota

 

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