Hey, ACE fans. Aaron here. Happy 2023! It’s been my annual tradition every year to look back at the year we just finished and talk about the highlights, but I want to change that up a bit. You already know the big event of 2022 – ACE recorded our 4th album, “The Age of Misinformation,” and will be releasing it for you this Friday, January 6! For this year’s annual look back, I want to instead give a shout out to the people who helped make our new album the best ACE release to date:
Of course, I couldn’t have done anything without my amazing bandmates: Anthony Basini, Clif Warren, and Pablo Ranlett-López. Thank you all for your excellent performances on the album and persevering through several false starts courtesy of the pandemic. Working with all of you has been one of the best professional experiences of my life!
Likewise, the guest musicians on the album all helped elevate the sound of The Aaron Clift Experiment. Thank you Big Wy’s Brass Band for the amazing performance on “Bet on Zero”: Ethan Brown, Austin Johanning, Heather Johanning, Justin Dunlap, William Wright, Marcus Cardwell, and Colin Houlihan. Thank you also to the very talented string quartet members who performed on “The Color of Flight” and “Málaga”: Zach Matteson, Charles Anderson, Jason Elinoff, and Ellie Prager.
Thank you to mixing engineer, Russell Tanner, and mastering engineer, Jerry Tubb. Both of you were incredibly patient and diligent with all the details of this album. I’m blown away with how the production sounds on the album!
Thank you to videographers, Charles Bradbury and Skyler Frost, for making a kick-ass music video for “Bet on Zero” and helping us put together a great pitch video for our pre-order campaign.
Thank you to visual artist, Fumihito Sugawara, for your incredible album art for “The Age of Misinformation.” I loved watching you come up with highly creative treatments for the album’s concepts.
Thank you to photographer, Tobe Mokolo, for putting together a really cool photoshoot with the new band lineup and making us look great.
Last, but certainly not least, thank all of you, the fans, for supporting us through this album cycle. Extra special thank to major album patrons, Mark Boyden, Louis DeCuir, Daniel James, Iron Megan, Jeff Grundmann, and Joe Strouse. I know that it took a little bit longer this time around to release our next album, but the wait is worth it, and none of us in The Aaron Clift Experiment could have done this without our awesome fans!
Happy new year, and get ready for new music this week!
–Aaron