Aaron Freeman 2012 soundcloud demos (download)

Post Marvelous Clouds (an album of exclusively Rod McKuen covers) Aaron Freeman's first solo effort and first under his own name- having informed his management and fanbase of the demise of Ween and his persona Gene Ween- anyone who has followed his prolific career wants to know what comes next?

Briefly Freeman posted to his soundcloud page a slew of new songs which ranged from (largely) manipulated spoken word samples such as on Rivers where Freeman frames to melancholic effect and entire reading of the Langston Hughes civil war poem Rivers:

I've known rivers:                                                                            I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the                          flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.                            I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep                      I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.                   I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln                            went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy                          bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:                                                                                Ancient, dusty rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Other songs such as Ribbit and most notably on Nature Man (an instant new Freeman classic) we hear the voluminous pop tunesmith singing about a frog and his long tongue and 'nature man' and 'nature girl' in streams of love with their boots on.  Instrumentals like Palmolive and Penny Whissle fizzle a bit but another ES-335 1 sounds reminiscent of something like Ween's Tear For Eddie without of course Dean Ween (Mickey Melchiondo's) sindering guitar line- a common feeling throughout the recordings although not lacking.

Any Ween completist will want to get ahold of these at times truly beautiful songs. A fan has captured the bulk of the songs barring Genene and made them available for download.  Songs like Stay With Me Daddy, More Than The World and the aforemementioned Nature Man fit easily and handily into the Ween/Freeman repertoire as some of his best songs to date.  Clearly sobrietry and fecundity are not mutually exclusive when it comes to the world of Aaron Freeman.

Aaron Freeman 2012 soundcloud demos

God2
Exodus
Ruth
Rivers
Caesar 
Life Force
Ribbit
Penny Whissle
ES 335 1
Palmolive
Stay With Me Daddy
Nature Man 
More Than The World
A Man Alone (home demo)
Mr. Kelly (home demo)
Doesn't Anyone Know My Name (home demo)
Signs Of The Transgression

Aaron Freeman - Nature Man (lyrics)

Nature Man (Aaron Freeman)

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on 

Streams of love trickling down 

Mr. Nature Man comes to me like a little girl

throwing daggers in the buildings

Southern eyes of greed and shame

Skin of paste and liquor

 throw your line to me I see your pain

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on 

Streams of love trickling down 

Have you held a newborne flower? 

Plucked yourself a sprig of Thyme in summer

A Yam in winter

 Take the shell of your soul and come with me

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on

Streams of love trickling down

The Cerebine's life, the berries glow

The seeds I have to show make growth seem like a possibility

The flesh peels, the bark peels off the flesh 

and succumbs to me

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on

Streams of love trickling down

Aaron Freeman (the now-deceased Gene Ween) was known in his now-former band Ween for writing the huge compendium of songs in their repertoire from which they would dip freely.  One of the things that made Gener such a thrilling performer was that he could sing in 4 or 5 different styles quite well including various vocoded and semi-demonic (but friendly demonic) altered voices.  In his very public meltdown at a Vancouver Ween performance, having lost a severe amount of weight over a matter of months, there were legitimate concerns that much deeper issues were at play than bananas and blow and pot brownie poisonings afoot.  One of the reviewers of that show rightly described one of his voices as a high pitched falsetto reminiscent of the Heat Miser (from A Year Without Santa Clause)- except in that performance his voice seemed to get stuck in that voice about half way through and never deviated after.

But for all of the debauch in the Ween repertoire- and it is a bloated lot suh that even listing relevant song titles and drug references would be largely futile- Freeman was just as much known for his blue-eyed soul. Ween are not a Philadelphia band they are rather proudly from New Hope, Pennsylvania but their song Freedom of '76 is a modern marvel in the Philadelphia Soul tradition.   Nature Man belongs strongly in the vein of those tender heart warming ballads that made up an important place in any live Ween show, songs such as: Birthday Boy, Baby Bitch, Stay Forever, Tender Situation, Flutes of Chi.

Freeman has been playing Nature Man live since at least June of 2012, numerous good sounding versions are out there including this one from Reggatabar which comes off as unintentionally comedic.  The inversion of Freeman as the Nature Girl 'walking with out boots on' is intended to play for some laughs.  But it's clear in listening to the recorded and interrupted (with laughter) live version that there is notsomuch humour hear as a harrowing and searching walk past the void upon whose edges he'd danced like a satyr over a volcano's lip.