aronas

ARONAS
Friday 8 July
(Filed Mon 11 July 2005)
When Aronas launched their debut album, Culture Tunnels, in Sydney earlier this year, they invited three guest drummers to join them on stage. The core band already features two drummers (Evan Mannell and Josh Green), but the idea was to recreate the heady, visceral throb of traditional South Pacific log drumming – one of the sounds that inspired the band’s creation.
For Aronas’ Melbourne show at Bennetts Lane last Friday, audiences had to content themselves with only two drumkits on stage. But Mannell and Green are powerful players, and their synchronised rolls and interlocking polyrhythms were more than enough to give the band’s music a decidedly tribal feel.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this group is the way it draws connections between the percussion-based cultures of the Pacific islands and the relentless, rhythmic drive of contemporary techno and trance dance music.
New Zealand-born, Sydney-based pianist Aron Ottignon is only 22, but he has already developed a boldly original approach to composition and performance. Some of his tunes are built around strong melodic hooks that have the instant appeal of a cleverly-constructed pop song. Others hang on the barest of harmonic pegs and are instead pinned to an insistent, pulsating rhythm (or series of rhythms).
Friday night’s second set, in particular, created an energetic arc that moved steadily upwards, each number building on the drama and momentum of the last. The final three tunes were performed without a break, as the bandmembers (Ottignon, Green, Mannell and bassist David Symes) locked into repeated, tension-filled riffs that could suddenly shift or change direction without warning.
Alongside these exhilarating kinetic journeys, there were some wonderfully soulful sidetrips. Strange People and Ai Leik Et both sashayed with a lush, determinedly unhurried sway. And Cabernet, which began like an adult nursery rhyme – all stabbing, stilted, grimy grooves – dissolved into an unexpectedly lyrical coda that emerged from Ottignon’s piano with Chopin-like serenity. Superb. - Review by: JESSICA NICHOLAS from THE AGE

Reviewer: John Shand
Sydney’s Aron Ottignon has hit upon something so startlingly original that he deserves galaxies of stars in our rating system. The apparent stinginess of the rating above is because I believe the pianist’s intersection of jazz, soul and South Pacific influences is in its infancy and could yet cleave a path through the prevailing mediocrity for many others to follow. Silvery piano melodies, thumping bass riffs, rolling rhythms and spiky, sometimes whispered percussion breaks stop and collide as unexpectedly as they start. This could be the start of something big.
John Shand
- Sydney Morning Herald

A decade ago a new generation of young jazz musicians emerged in Auckland and captured the imagination of the clubbers and scene-makers. Among them were Nathan Haines and Mark De Clive Lowe, both of whom have gone on to prove themselves internationally.

Pianist Aron Ottignon was too young to catch that wave, and by the time he was 17 he had left these shores and was establishing himself in Sydney.

Ottignon barely had time to make a deep impression here although he did pick up some awards and attention, but he has blossomed across the Tasman where he has been hailed as a "jazz prodigy" (the Sun-Herald in 2002). The Sydney Morning Herald has long been championing him, and said, "His original style and musical intelligence is matched with an explosive technical ability. His breathtaking solos are edge-of-the-seat stuff."

Two years ago he picked up the Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year award, and has played to audiences in top Sydney clubs and at the Big Day Out. He has also taken his talents further afield: he played at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2003 (and was comedian Greg Proops’ musical director), and the following year performed in Hong Kong and Shanghai. He has played at Sydney’s Fashion Week and at Russell Crowe’s wedding.

With regular club and hotel residencies, and session work, Ottignon has rarely made it back to New Zealand to perform, but this week he makes a lightning strike around the Auckland region with his band Aronas.

For those who remember him only as the precocious kid who picked up the award for New Zealand’s most outstanding young jazz musician under 25 (when he was 11), this is a chance to catch up with how he has developed. And he certainly casts his musical net wide.

"Ottignon is a world-class musician," said the Scotsman. "His brand of testosterone-fuelled, Rachmaninov-goes-jazz playing will take your breath away."

That’s one way of putting it. But with Aronas, which boasts an unusual line-up of piano, bass and two percussionist/drummers, there are also some discreet elements of quasi-Polynesian rhythms at work alongside the funk, the delicate balladry, and the muscular Latin edges.

Aronas will launch their debut album Culture Tunnels at the Odeon on Friday night.

Ottignon might not have achieved the profile of Haines and De Clive Lowe, but he is among our finest jazz exports. He’s so good, they call him an Australian over the Tasman.
- by Graham Reid New Zealand Herald

Recent gigs by Aronas have shown the group to be one of the most tightly knit, inventive and infectious groove/instrumental bands to have emerged on the Sydney scene in recent history. The debut album, Culture Tunnels, is further evidence of this. With two drummers, Evan Mannell and Dave Hibbard, as well as percussionists Josh Green and bassist Dave Symes, there is an enormous diversity of rhythmic ideas, and the group draws everything, from dirty punk-rock sounds to earthy bluesy feels, to funk grooves. These are married with lyrical melodies, penned and played by young piano prodigy Aron Ottignon, and, most importantly delivered with a fresh, intense energy and unity of sound. Every song is a journey, and there is that constant and most satisfying feeling of not quite knowing where the players will next take their ideas. Simple motifs are explored with the emphasis on subtlety of feel, and then build into frezied vigorous jams.

From the opening track 'Burn For Me', which is based around a commanding., Pacific-inspired drum groove - and features some virtuosic playing from Ottignon - to the closing one, the spacious, laid back and beautifully melodic Ai Leik Et, Culture Tunnels is all compelling listening.
- Jasemine Crittendon

The crowd at the launch of Aronas’ debut CD, Culture Tunnels, was at least two hundred strong in numbers, and infused with the kind of cult-like anticipation that you usually see at the gigs of bands like The Necks or The Cat Empire. From the moment that the set opened, the reasons for this became obvious in a demanding, infectious groove, driven by not one, but two drum kits, at the hands of Evan Mannell and Josh Green; the kind of funky bass playing that gets right under your skin, from David Symes; and, to cap it all off, piano prodigy and band leader Aron Ottignon producing all measure of sounds from the grand.

Prior to the gig, in an interview, Ottignon expressed his desire to take his audience on a journey’ – well, he certainly realised his aim. The audience was certainly enthralled throughout. The music soared through the whole spectrum of ideas, but always retained its connection with the listeners through lyrical melodies and compelling rhythms. Aronas understands the art of mastering its audience through the gradual building and release of tension in a skill that is becoming all too rare amongst dance-orientated live groups. So, there were moments of contemplation and introspection that explored the improvisational possibilities of single, repeated motifs, sometimes bright and uplifting, at others of an ethereal kind of beauty. These would grow into irresistible jams, sometimes dirty, rocky and punk-inspired, at others drawing from the great sounds of 70’s funk, at all times powered by an all consuming energy. At one point, three other guest drummers were invited to the stage, which took the room to a point of near hysteria. The audience pretty much danced all night and boisterously demanded an encore when it was over.

Aronas is clearly one of the most dynamic groups to have emerged on the Australain live scene over the past couple of years. The musicians are all consummate instrumentalists, of mind blowing prowess, but also commanded by an innate sense of musicality. This is one group to keep a close eye on.
- Drum Media - Jasemine Crittedon