Premiere: Aidan Carroll rediscovers himself with new album, ‘The Other Side’

Aidan Carroll‘s metamorphosis is extraordinary to behold. Even within the walls of “Metamorphosis,” a psychedelic cut smack dab in the middle of his grand, extremely-experimental and dangerously-visceral new pop record, The Other Side, premiering in full today, there is an overwhelming and intoxicating sense of rebirth. Three years ago, his father passed away, and while Carroll dedicates the nine-song project to his predecessor’s memory, his presence isn’t so overbearing to distract from Carroll’s ambitious adventures. The payoffs lie in his willingness to go for broke. From his vocal nuances etched into songs like “Metamorphosis” to the daring showcased in the electric guitar’s mournful cry, the flighty synths tearing through the sky and the percussion’s campfire crackle, he manages to infuse the emotions of the heart right into the backbone of the record.

“I have dealt with grief in losing him, of course, but have honestly felt reinvigorated with his spirit through the making of this album,” Carroll tells B-Sides & Badlands of the looming spirit of his father, moving in slight but gigantic skips throughout the music. “He was a spiritual and intellectual man, and both of those sides have re-inspired me in the creative process, and I believe those spirits are present in the album, as well.”

“Welcome” is an evocative down pour, literally and figuratively, decorated with wind chimes and a sweeping, balmy afterglow, beckoning you into this newly delivered iteration. “Misunderstood” is sticky with the sweat of late ’90s R&B, also present on other such standouts as “All in All” and “You Belong,” and within the framework of preconceived designs and expectations, he stays true to his art and colors far outside the lines in subtle but profound ways. With “I Used to Party,” featuring the spit and grit of rapper Mari, Carroll takes a breather to remember his youth, keeping the slickness at the bass and letting his style bounce around a classic groove. “I used to go out on the dance floor / Dancing with your girlfriends / I was wild and young / I had the funk in my bones,” he sings, and you believe him. He lingers on the moment just long enough to take you back, too, to some time when you lost yourself in time and space, getting a high on life.

Greg Paulus shows up on “Flutter,” clinking of Nintendo bings and saucy spouts of trumpet, and the classically-jazz structure, of organic instruments bending around the synthetic in dark curves, is at times lush, other times ridiculously mind-warping. Carroll’s background in jazz music certainly serves him well across the whole record, and you’re often transported to some Salvador Dalí-conjured world, one in which the music is the canvas and your mind, trapped between outlandish cracks and chips, is the paintbrush left to its own devices. “Another Step” glues the rainbow bursts of a drum line with shadowy and reflective wavelets, both in form and tone, and all you really want to do now is meditate on your own life and its significance. “Forget to hold your breath / Another life it’s left / And you’re gone but you always live on,” he sings, pulling out a final rumination on his father’s life and legacy before leaving you to it.

In acknowledging the past, Carroll pushes onward into uncharted territory, musically as much as personally. “I definitely saw myself in new ways making this record. I feel like it shows a more complete picture of who I am, and the whole creation process was very revealing to me,” he says. “I didn’t know I could really write and come up with songs like this. But it also reminded me that I like to make art, whether it’s abstract or pop.”

Below, spin the new record ahead of its Friday (September 14) street date and gain further insight into its creation.

How have you changed in making this record?

I feel like I can go any direction, musically, now. I feel more free and that I’ve grown as a person and an artist. Many life events happened during this time, and I think, when you deal those things, especially when they’re challenging or difficult, you have no choice but to grow from them. I feel like I’ve also experienced many transcendent moments during the making of this album and while on tour with Lisa Fischer (which was continuous while I worked on the album). I know that from creating this body of work, I trust myself even more in the songwriting process.

Has it been easy to be so vulnerable in your music?

For the most part, yes. I’ve learned this is something I have, naturally, and I think being an emotional type person helps me to be in tune to those things when writing. I feel to be at my best, even if I’m just playing an instrument, that I need to tap into some source of raw vulnerability or instinctive expression. But I think that takes some deep and primal understanding of one’s self or the universe. I’m still learning how to do this and to do it in a way that’s still musical.

Having a background in jazz, did that give you a leg up in terms of being able to explore various shades of melody in ways most pop singer-songwriters can’t or don’t?

Yes and no. [laughs] On one hand, I felt I needed to shed away all the jazz influence so that I don’t overcrowd the music. But in another way, yes it informs some of the decisions and style choices, especially, for example, in the chords of a song. If anything, I think all my different influences helped me to layer the songs in a way that’s different from a more traditional pop artist.

How did “open exploration” inform some of the choices you made in production, melody or imagery?

Feeling free to “explore” was an essential reminder to myself that I’m making art, and no matter what people may think, this is my process, and I wanted to feel good about that. I’m a very visual person and tied to nature, so I found that as I was creating sounds those kind of natural spaces or images would come into my mind. Also, “open exploration” to me is another way of saying “improvisation,” and this is the way I would write jazz compositions in the past ⎯⎯ just by starting to improvise on the piano. The difference now is that I have new tools to do this with ⎯⎯ drum machines, synthesizers, guitars, vocals, etc. The whole evolution has been pretty liberating.

Photo Credit: Deneka Peniston

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