Album Review: Porches - Pool

Bedroom producers are a phenomenon of the past. New York-based singer-songwriter Aaron Maine is among a group of new artists who are doing slightly better than their bed-ridden predecessors: apartment producers. Recorded inside his Manhattan residence with his partner and collaborator Greta Kline, Pool is Maine's second album and his first effort for a major record label. 

Maine keeps a relatively strict aesthetic across the dozen songs on Pool, melding soaring synth symphonies with his melancholy vocal melodies as he creates an immersive atmosphere. Underwater feels like the scene from The Graduate when Dustin Hoffman seeks solace at the bottom of a swimming pool, perfectly encapsulating the image of loneliness and isolation. The skittish saxophone solo on Shaver is then the most notable departure from these diffused sounds, equally as disturbing and alluring as Mrs Robinson herself.

In her recent memoir M Train, fellow New Yorker Patti Smith takes a moment to reflect on how tempting the illusion of stability can seem. "Anxious for some permanency, I guess I needed to be reminded how temporal permanency is," she writes. It's a lesson Maine tries to teach himself across Pool, as he sings ambiguous lines like, "I wanna be apart of it all," on Be Apart. His songwriting is subtle throughout record, however it's not until the sparse album's closer Security that he seems the most sincere. "I wish there was a place I could stay," he sings, despite knowing that it will always be slightly out of reach.