Aaron Lindh - Heroine (Virtually Nonexistent)

The Slow Music Movement
Sep 20
2 min read

The cover for Aaron Lindh's Heroine single, showing a person floating in a pond surrounded by trees and reeds. The person has been obscured by some red marker pen on the black and white photo.

Aaron Lindh has paid his dues in the London underground, not as a train driver I might add, but with collectives Sonic Verse & OG Horse, as well as producing songs for Lex Amor alongside aiding and abetting a range of the city's talents behind the scenes. Well, he's finally decided to come out of the studio closet and step into the spotlight, and on the strength of this debut single it's about time too.

A lo-fi pop haze of field recordings, ambient electronics and a low key moody guitar motif gets the track rolling, setting a suitably opiated vibe for Lindh's hushed vocals to float over. He's not messing about lyrically either, admitting to his history of toxic relationships, although in this age of online dating, toxic masculinity, self entitlement and heightened expectation I'm sure as hell not judging. Sometimes though it's not what you say but how you say it, and Lindh digs deep before opening his mouth - there's a real soulfulness in his voice. Painful experience works wonders in music and he's managed to translate his into a genuinely emotive song.

The well judged playing and production creates a refreshingly unpolished electroacoustic cushion that elevates rather than distracts from the tale. The guitar melts into the electronic ambience, the layered vocals swirling like smoke in a stoner's living room, as the deep beats, low end frequencies and subtle Latin percussion shape the clouds into a cohesive whole, and then all too soon the song evaporates into a salsa street field recording, a suitably wayward ending to this fine slice of dreamy outsider pop.

If that's wasn't enough there's also a suitably lo-fi, DIY video that ambles around London's town in a state of high-grade detachment, hinting at the creative minds, stoned dropouts and lost souls that float like ghosts amongst the city's unforgiving rat race. Let's hope there's plenty more to come - you might even be able to keep in touch with him here.