A well put line …

By Benjamin Joe

Photograph by Benjamin Joe

On left, Marc Edwards, the man of sound, stands next to Aaron Masters, the lyricist for “Liars to Poets” debut album “We Used To Live Here.”

Poets are notorious liars, as the saying goes, but there’s a reason for that. The truth hurts and sometimes the only avenue to get away from the brutal reality of life is to lie. 

The best liars have been spinning deception for the span of years and their lies become so seamless, so beautiful, we have to accept them as the only true things left. Thus Shakespear. 

Thus Byron. 

Thus Gorman.

Maybe that’s a little too dark, but the truth still stings. What’s wrong with enjoying a fantasy?

Aaron Masters and Marc Edwards have been playing for years in different bands around Buffalo and the surrounding area. Their paths have crossed a few times. They lived in the same neighborhoods – in different years.  They knew the same people. They even work in the same school district as teachers of science and special education, respectively.

Somehow the universe was edging them together. During COVID they found themselves living just a few houses away from eachother and a collaboration began. Edwards sampling and matching sounds to riffs and Masters arranging the whole and stamping his own lyrics on top.

“We Used To Live Here” is the debut album the duo have pasted and parceled together. A little edgy, a little arty, but all rhythm and intoxicating in this listener’s mind. 

The first track “Night on a Wire” starts off with sampling post-punk whispers and segments of words, reminiscent of Foo-Fighters and the Sweater Song from Weezer. But the hook isn’t far behind. It greets you in the morning and pulls you to work. Then it pulls you home and puts you into tortured dreams. … A banging first track that holds you tight in comatic warmth before letting the temperature drop and dumping the listener into the icy atmosphere.

The truth is cold, freezing ice water, and the best poem is the one that keeps you there until your eyeballs freeze.

The two guys are humble enough. They talk about the song and the experience of putting it, and the rest of the album, into the semblance of what can only be described as a piece of poetry.

The parceling and piecing mentioned always started with Edwards putting together all the sounds and samples and sending them off. Masters would then “take piece by piece and move them around like legos.”

“I would sit with the track for sometimes a couple of days, sometimes a couple of weeks and I would start working out parts and hooks,” Masters said.

“When we started really getting going with it, I would do something really out of the box, not something in our typical style,” Edwards continued. “And Aaron would send something back to me and it’d be catchy and make sense and it all flowed.

“I’d say, ‘well I guess I can press it even more’ and make it even more electronic and more out there!”

Masters and Edwards said they became more and more adept at their craft, to the point where the last few songs are done with almost no more of the editing that the two had become acquainted with during the production of their work.

As mentioned, both of the musicians started in local bands playing out in the local scene.

“Usually like classic rock to doom metal,” Edwards said. “To newer post-punk/metal. … what went over the best was probably the doom, sludge band. It drew the biggest crowds, but I had probably the least to do with it musically.”

“I’m all over the place,” Masters said. “I started singer songwriter stuff, I didn’t even pick up a guitar until I was 18. I got super into it, writing some verses and choruses.”

Masters said he still plays out with a cover-band which he said “Is always entertaining, but it’s kind of like we sold our souls.”

“After I was doing that for six months, Marc and I connected,” Masters continued. “He was like, you play guitar? I play guitar. You were in a band? I was in a band. Then we traded CDs ….”

True story? Possibly.

While Liars to Poets is not planning on playing their album out, the two are still wrapped up with the feeling that making something like poetry tends to bring about. Masters said music makes him “feel more whole,” and Edwards says not working on the album has left him “feeling empty.”

“My instinct is still to go downstairs and create something,” he said.

Check out “We Used To Live” on bandcamp at liarstopoets.bandcamp.com.