Aan is a fearless experimental pop band from Portland, Oregon mixing heavily textured guitars with rich vocal harmonies. The band has been active since 2007 self-releasing several CD-Rs and garnering a reputation throughout the Northwest as a progressive force in the independent scene.
The band beckons a bevvy of comparisons but their sound cannot be pigeonholed. The vocal dexterity of singer Bud Wilson skillfully reaches the octaves of the late Jeff Buckley while maintaining a timbre that's much grittier. Aan's arrangements lie somewhere between Sub Pop's late nineties catalog and the Anticon label's inventiveness.
Their forthcoming LP "Amor Ad Nauseum" will be the groups first proper release. The work will demonstrate a patience and attention to space not found in much of the new cannon of up and coming artists. Aan will continue to tour through the continental US in 2012.

To what great distances music transports us: lives we have never lived, streets we've never walked down, cities we've never visited, countries we know only from printed images and film. Light Thieves, however, conjure none of these locations. Their sonic geography is the eternal expanse of the cosmos. Theirs is the sound of stars whose chemical energy pours out upon your head, the resting place of a journey lasting thousands of years, silent and solitary until this very moment of unveiling splendor.

There is a tension inherent in this transmission. The ageless wonder of infinite galaxies is at once disrupted and illuminated by visions of the future, the promises of space travel, the unfathomable awe of lightspeed. Shining guitar riffs reflect keyboard melodies amid a spiraling choir that evokes the grandeur of astronomy, as propulsive rhythm blurs planets and constellations around the listener, propelling you deeper into a cosmic unknown.

Within this void Light Thieves is wholly realized; you are bathed and reborn in their overwhelming emanations, wherein floating through the immensity of space is at once more gorgeous and heart-rending than you could have envisioned.

-Daniel Schultz [Portland, OR]