Beauty Through Adversity: Aaron Roche – “Like Why I”

Aaron Roche

“Like Why I”

HaHa HuHu

The first single from Aaron Roche’s new album is one of the most beautiful, hypnotizing, surprising, odd, perfect song ever.  Starting softly with just Roche singing, then the backup singers come in, then Roche fades out leaving the backup singers, then they all come back together.  All the while, this great synth builds in the background.  Listen, you will go under the water.  It is so strange I can’t compare to anything I’ve ever heard.  Lyrically fogged with abstraction, Roche writes that HaHa HuHu is a record of his grappling with mental illness over the years of the album’s construction. But it is not as bleak as this admission might suggest. The picture is of inquisitiveness and discovery, not submission.  The beauty of this music cannot be denied.  Brian Eno would be impressed.