Reticence is the brainchild of New England musician Aaron Riverwood. His latest release “Suncatchers” is a beautiful collection of colorful guitar improvisations that channel aspects of shoegaze, ambient and psychedelic tones.
I caught up with Aaron to talk about the music that inspired him when he was growing up, how he developed his sound and the making of the new record.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artist or band did you enjoy the most?
Aaron-The first music that made me aware of guitars was Def Leppard. Phil Collen’s Ibanez Destroyer and Steve Clark’s guitar solo on the boat in the “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak” video were the coolest things I’d ever seen.
In high school I would’ve said The Ramones, The Smiths, Violent Femmes, VU, and Dylan. Relative to the current phase of Reticence, I would say Sarah Lipstate aka Noveller, the Cure, Boards of Canada, Eno, and Pompeii-era Pink Floyd.
CMM-How did you start writing songs and developing your own sound?
Aaron-I don’t consider what I currently do in Reticence songwriting. 99% of what I play is improvised, and I never remember anything I play. But I got to this point by discovering the music of Noveller on Instagram circa December 2018, which led me to consider that I might become a one-man band. My great friend Jeremy Withers (aka The Wire Chimes) guided me into the world of pedals and effects, and for several years Reticence did sort of a trad/gothy/surfy/doomy thing I thought of as New England Psychedelia. Over the course of time things just sort of evolved into a more insular, introverted kind of thing, which is where it is now.
CMM-You recently released an album called “suncatchers”. What was the writing and recording process like and were there any particular pieces of gear you used to get the sound you were looking for?
Aaron-All these tracks were improvised, mostly in the morning as the light shined into my living room, which faces east. I have a collection of crystal suncatchers made by my friend Jane Litwin Taylor of Cascading Wood Designs, and the spangles provoke a nicely introspective and delicate mood that it turns out is really inspiring. Others were improvised at night under purple holiday lights and galaxy lamp.
The improvisation process is pretty intuitive, and consists of tuning into a feeling or vibe and then seeing how that manifests and interacts with whatever pedals I’m using. Titling tracks comes last, usually, and to a certain extent is fairly arbitrary based on which of the many phrases in my head seem to go along with any given recording.
I could talk all day about the gear i used to record these tracks, if i could remember what I used! My pedalboard is a constantly evolving entity, and I’m awful at remembering these things, and awful at remembering to write them down. In general I’m usually using some kind of Boss digital delay, a Digitech Obscura delay set to “analog,” a Big Muff (Green Russian these days), an EHX Mel9 for warbly flute sounds, and a Walrus Audio Slo (or Sloer, if I’m playing in stereo) for reverb. I also like reversed sounds a lot, and use both a Red Panda Tensor and an Old Blood Noise Endeavors BL-44 Reverse – the latter makes these great noises that sound like birds to me. I also sometimes use a Boss Slicer for a little percussive flavor. I use an ebow a lot, but I don’t think that shows up on this album.
I also use a partial capo on “Nicktures of You” which changes the tuning from DGDGAD to DCGCAD. Everything else is tuned in standard.
As for guitar, I started playing Jazzmasters in 2019 after something like 30 years of playing the same Les Paul, and now they’re all I play. I favor the Squier/Fender J Mascis models, and I also have an American Pro II that I used on a lot of these tracks. For amps, I believe all of these tracks go through a Roland JC-40, which alongside a Yamaha G50 112 II is my main amp.
I think all of these tracks were originally videos I took with my phone and posted online, so I imported the video files into GarageBand, removed the videos, and turned them into wav files. I did only the tiniest bit of editing on one track. I can’t be bothered to fire up my laptop for the actual recording, most of the time, hence the iphone.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
Aaron-My first response is John Carpenter, but then we wouldn’t have John Carpenter scores, and there’s no point in that. So if Roger Ebert had written a Hammer Horror movie about a cult of psychedelic sex witches, I’d like to score that.
CMM-Anything coming up?
Aaron-I’ve taken a break from playing shows, after realizing that in general I really don’t like it. I have had a lot of fun playing shows in the past, but my playing is getting more and more personal and spiritual, and combined with my ADHD that makes it hard to attune to the music. I do like the idea of playing in living rooms for people, though.
I continue to spontaneously record improvised videos and post them to youtube and/or Facebook, and if I get enough stuff I like I’ll probably pull together another release like suncatchers. I’m currently recovering from hand surgery, but before that I had been really working on a more “guitar-forward” way of playing – instead of letting the pedals do most of the talking, I’ve been trying to see what my guitar has to say. It’ll be interesting to see how the healing process affects my development.
Finally, if all goes according to plan, next spring I should have an actual singer/songwriter album out under the name Terrible Hermit. It’s very Nick Drakey.
