You Are Protected by Silent Love

Aged’s latest album 'You Are Protected By Silent Love' follows his recent self-titled LP and 'Bass Improvisations EP' and takes the luminous head music into even deeper waters, filled with kosmische Americana, microfunk daydreams, liquid mercury gospel, Red-era Fripp dark matter riffing, and delicate polyrhythms that subtly recall the percussive drive of footwork and jungle. So expressive is Aged’s instrumentation that it’s easy to forget that this is an all- instrumental affair, anchored largely by his keening pedal steel textures and inquisitive bass playing. Rarely are such complex emotions and radical musical touches rendered with so much heart and directness-- in under an hour Aged invokes the urbane pastoralism of Jim O’Rourke and Ralph Towner as much as the sweetly crushing passing chords of Thomas Whitfield’s band at their peak or D’Angelo’s Voodoo reduced to only morning mist and tumbleweeds. While musicians often speak of aspiring to make healing music, Aged’s album arrives truly as a balm, with room for every shade of emotion but guided by a tender, unafraid hand. - Dr. Brian Rogers