Aaron Ross
Aaron Ross has been writing and recording music in the Sierra foothills of Northern California for more than twenty years. His songs fuse elements of classic American folk, blues, and rock-n-roll with an appetite for eclecticism and a dose of absurdist glee to create a sound that is at once spectrally familiar and relentlessly innovative, both rooted in tradition and bracingly original. From the plaintive acoustic reveries of his beloved first release, The Hallelujah Side (2003), to the grunge-country syncretism of Shapeshifter (2007), the schizophrenic symphonies of Paranormal Attitude (2008), and even a series of experimental collaborations with Sacramento math-rock artists Hella, Ross's songwriting transcends genre and defies expectations. Yet it is his lyrical genius that has truly set him apart. Channeling Bukowski and the Beats as much as old-time religion and the dreadful poetry of the Bible, Ross delights in summoning spirits and warbling esoteric, weaving together the sacred and the profane. He likes to mesmerize and he likes to disgust. In these wanton God-haunted verses, as another poet once put it, "the pure products of America go crazy."
His oeuvre marked by an uncompromising commitment to artistic integrity, Ross has largely eschewed the spotlight. But a series of recent albums announce that he remains at the peak of his craft. In 2021, Ross joined forces with Nevada City-based Farrow & The Peach Leaves to record Swan Songs, Vol. 1, an anthology of new variations on old favorites set to the driving rhythms and adamant guitar of southern rock. Troubled Water, released earlier this year, is his tenth studio album. There is a rich vein of folk culture running through Gold Country, and Ross is both miner and metallurgist-an artist whose remarkable talents enable him not only to unearth the best of a deeply organic local tradition, but also to refine and form it into something more universal.