Aarktica — Current Clients

"A beautiful and dynamic ride between ambient electric symphony and intimate human song."

- Alan Sparhawk, Low.

Aarktica is the brainchild of Jon DeRosa, who has been releasing a diverse catalog of music under this name since 1999. Beginning with the ambient guitar opus No Solace in Sleep (Silber), DeRosa has spent the last two decades charting his way across cosmic sonic terrains and ambient soundscapes through patient songwriting and a starry-eyed curiosity in experimentation. It's a journey that began with DeRosa recording guitar experiments on a four-track cassette recorder in his college dorm after going permanently deaf in his right ear.

"I was having aural hallucinations. Everything I knew as sonically 'normal' suddenly changed. When I started Aarktica, it was a bit like a sonic journal, trying to recreate and reinterpret sounds as I was hearing them." DeRosa had studied classical guitar since he was 10 years old. These new recordings, which would become No Solace in Sleep, translated those classical musical forms to electric guitar, stretched them into infinity, soaked them in reverb and delay, and created an entirely new sound identity that would evolve over the years.

It was also around this time that DeRosa began studying Indian classical music with minimalist pioneer, composer La Monte Young. This relationship would greatly influence all of DeRosa’s music in the years to follow, as well as how he learned to "hear" again.

DeRosa finds himself traversing through the valleys of atmospheric ambient and wide-eyed folk on his upcoming album, We Will Find the Light, out September 30th, 2022 via Darla Records. For this release, DeRosa returns to his roots, crafting many of these songs on classical guitar, an approach he's never taken before as Aarktica. "It is the instrument most natural to me, the instrument that I play for comfort. And working with it again allowed a much more intimate flow of words and music. It allowed me to be more open, to share a bit more of myself than I normally would."

We Will Find the Light presents an image of DeRosa at ease with himself, finding peace in not needing to separate the various tributaries of his artistry as he had done in the past, and embracing the river each stream leads to. “It started to feel like this convergence of the folkier music I’d write under my own name, and the atmospheric sound of Aarktica,” says DeRosa. “After 20 years or so these two styles came together, it doesn’t need to be compartmentalized anymore. It was freeing.”

DeRosa finds a balance between vocal and instrumental songs throughout We Will Find the Light. Covering two songs known and celebrated in shamanic circles, including “Olha o Sol Que Vai Nascendo” by Portuguese singer Mariana Root, and "Sirenita Bobinsana” by Peruvian songwriter Artur Mena, DeRosa celebrates and champions themes that run through the album: healing, growth, resolution, and the beauty in the connecting fibers between trauma and peace. Songs like “A Quiet Place” and “Celestial Transmission” create gorgeous space for shimmering sonics to resonate, while “Goodnight” and “Delicate Waltz of Shadows” finds DeRosa opening himself and his voice to meditative reflection within himself, and in his interpersonal relationships.

The album is the intersection of influences and experiences and moves seamlessly through both melancholia and optimism. Within these songs influences of Leonard Cohen, This Mortal Coil and Nick Cave shine through, intermingling with those of minimalist composers like Ingram Marshall, and ambient artists like Juliana Barwick and Steve Roach. The album is Aarktica's most ambitious and sublime album to date and marks his first collaboration with Grammy-nominated producer Lewis Pesacov. Notable contributors also include cellist/violist Henrik Meierkord, keyboardist Charles Newman and vocalist Nicole LaLiberté.

After No Solace in Sleep, Aarktica's evolution began to incorporate other musicians and collaborators, as DeRosa had the fortune of being part of a very creative circle of talented musicians in late-90's Brooklyn.

"I would put together a new incarnation of Aarktica each time, depending on what type of album I wanted to make," says DeRosa on Aarktica's eclectic catalog. "Some albums have more orchestral elements, some had more rock elements, and others were more ambient and experimental. At some point we had 8 people in the band, playing horns, strings, harmoniums..."

But no matter what the lineup, Aarktica's uniqueness in the genre has been for using primarily processed guitars – along with organic instruments like brass, strings and horns -- to create its unique textural sound.

We Will Find the Light is the first physical release since 2009's In Sea and the first full-length since 2019's Mareación. It follows Aarktica's three full length albums on Darla: Matchless Years (2007), Bleeding Light (2005), ...Or You Could Just Go Through Your Whole Life and Be Happy Anyway: Bliss Out Vol. 18 (2002) and albums No Solace in Sleep (2000) and Pure Tone Audiometry (2003), released on Silber Records.

In addition to his work in Aarktica, DeRosa is also currently the vocalist for veteran ethereal-goth band Black Tape for a Blue Girl.