Aqueduct – I Sold Gold
Label: Barsuk
Style: Alternative Pop, Indie Rock
Released: 2005
My Grade: 4 stars
AMG: n/a
Sounds like: Brian Eno


I am a music geek, it is a simple, truthful fact that no one can deny; but I am also a movie geek and overall a general geek, so it should be no surprise that I enjoy music that brings that aspect of me out.

The perfect example of ‘geek music’ would be the from Aqueduct’s “I Sold Gold” because it just sounds like it was created by a music geek, and for music geeks. Are you tired of me talking about geeks yet? I just don’t know any other way to explain it without shouting to the world the kind of people that listen to this music. If you doubt my assertion to music-geekdom and you own this cd, then look at your music collection and into your knowledge of music and strange tidbits and I can nearly prove that you belong to some form of music geek.

“The Suggestion Box” opens the album, a simple melody that keeps repeating itself and David Terry enters with his unique vocal stylings as he plows through the fire, it reminds me of what would happen if a white boy gets a hold of a beatbox and wants to be a gansta (not gangster, that is just not cool enough) while still retaining his DIY punk ethics; pure pleasure. My attention really peaked with “Growing Up With GNR”, which is probably his most accessible song on the entire album, while he talks about his fantasy world and a seemingly distant girlfriend, as well as Axl Rose on the radio.

I get the feeling that David loves music as music, and that he is having fun with the entire production, going from one style to another, and bouncing back again. He never takes any extreme turns, but at the same time he refuses to stay with one distinct sound and gives himself over to toying with each little music nuance he finds, just like falling in love for the first time all over again.

This album could not have come out at any other year in history – it feels perfect for this digital age and the transformations that occur within it. The elements of eighties pop and nineties alternative mix and blur into something modern while retaining a feel for the entire electronic age.

I know that the album is not perfectly constructed, and that it has its own flaws, but I think the charm is overall consuming, even the little mistakes found within the sound just add to the heart and love.

This release rocks my geeky bones. It stuns.

Reviewed by: Samuel Aaron

Official Website: aqueductisgoodmusic.com