Aaron Brooks is an alternative/indie folk artist and multi-instrumentalist who released their debut album ‘Zephyr’ in December 2023. Focused on a blend of abstract, evocative lyricism, distinctly gentle but rhythmic fingerpicking, and emotive vocal performances, their music seeks to capture a complicated but universal range of human emotions. From the densely layered Saxophone in the vulnerably impassioned ‘Different This Time’, to the surreal serenity of ambient distortion on the closing track ‘Remnants’, Aaron Brooks never remains on one easily defined sound whilst still maintaining a distinct authorship over their music. With clear influences from the vulnerability of Sufjan Stevens and the lilting melodies of Adrianne Lenker, at almost an hour long and entirely self-recorded, ‘Zephyr’ is an impressive feat in raw songwriting. Most recently, Aaron released their ‘Winter EP’, a brief exploration of spirituality combining experimental versions of traditional Advent and Christmas carols with original pieces, this EP’s shorter length doesn’t affect the variation, cohesively shifting through the corners of Aaron Brooks’ musical stylings even when performing material that isn’t original.

Commentary

When starting out writing the bio for my EPK, I wanted to ensure I opened with the most central part of musical journey so far to indicate the level of accomplishment I am at. This being my first album ‘Zephyr’, an almost hour-long collection of self-recorded singer/songwriter tracks. I wanted to use the tangibility of this album as a launching off point in order to explore the more conceptual fundamental aspects of my song writing whilst also trying to convey the extent of variation within the album, listing off two of the most sonically unique tracks on the album and aspects of their instrumentation to aid this. As my songs are mostly fairly lo-fi and stripped back I needed to get a lot out of a little by going into detailed descriptions about the essentials of my writing (Lyrics, Guitar and vocal) and succinctly list them off with adjectives that portray them as unique and thoughtful. I also wanted to briefly touch on my most recent project, that subtly connects to a slightly more niche aspect of my work, being exploration of spirituality.

I was originally going to open my EPK by saying that I was from Leicester, but after some group discussions where we decided it’s only worth mentioning a city if it is prominent within cultural music scenes (i.e. London). However, group discussions also pointed out the need for some sense of a building personal life within the biography, which lead me to include some more biographical details, most importantly being moving to Leeds to study songwriting at Leeds Conservatoire showing a sense of progression.

Switching lanes, I needed to convey the extent to which my musical work is a broad scope, so dedicated a paragraph to my other work as an ambient musician. I included a direct quote from my release post of the album to give a sense of directness in this EPK that gives the audience a clear understanding of my own feelings and descriptions of my music. It also subtly hints at my consistent presence on social medias by connecting to my own writings and posts. Whilst sort of a side-project (or at least a less accessible area of my work) I wanted to convey the equal importance I feel it holds amongst my singer/songwriter work by spending some time homing in on particular tracks and the sounds I went for to highlight the depth and intent that is still present. By referring to one of the tracks as the ‘lead single’ I also subtly nod to a clear release plan in how I carry out album launches, which all adds to the professional and competent image of myself that I’m trying to create. Including the dates of my releases at the beginning of the paragraph also foregrounds the sense of progression and consistent work that I’m carrying out, ensuring I don’t give an impression of being static in my musicianship.

I wanted to give a clear sense of my goals and experiences as a live performer, particularly to give confidence to any event bookers who’d be reading my EPK. Whilst mentioning that I perform gigs almost entirely alone could feel risky, I believe it displays a level of effectiveness in my music that it can primarily stand alone and hold an audience’s attention. One of the primary feelings I want the person reading this (i.e an events manager) to come away with is a sense of the duality of openness to new and unique musical practices alongside a clear sense of authorship and direction with my music. By ending the section on live performances with a mention of getting a more consistent backing band to enrich my gigs, I am showing a sense of progression with my openness to new methods of keeping my music fresh whilst ensuring I convey that I maintain my constant focus on the basic folk songwriting roots of my craft.

At the end of my bio, I decided to briefly touch upon a side project of mine that seems worlds apart from my music to break up any possible sense of my bio being one-note, as I was concerned there were a lot of repeated themes. I also wrote a lot about the solo nature of my own released material, which gives the wrong impression of self-isolation and unwillingness to collaborate, so providing an example of a looser and a strange group project I’m involved in prevents anyone from reaching these conclusions

In group settings, it had been suggested that I research other artist’s bios before finishing my own to compare to other successful artists to see what works. I first looked at Sufjan Stevens’ Spotify artist bio (as musically he is my primary inspiration). As artist pages on streaming have shorter bios than I was writing and as he has a much more prolific body of work, the pacing is quicker and there is less detail with the way each of his projects are described, rattling through each album in list form with short summary’s like ‘a collection of sacred and biblical songs’ to describe his album ‘Seven Swans’. Because of the level of success he already has, his bios don’t pay any attention to what his trajectory or upcoming goals are. In contrast, as a mostly unknown and early-career musician, I have to paint a clearer image of myself from scratch and ensure I give any gig promoters, events managers, or potential collaborators a sense of my direction as an artist. On trying to research smaller-scale artists, I decided to look at the bio for a small indie-musician called ‘Clara Mann’, though I was surprised at how brief it was and how much personality there was in the way it was written, feeling like an outlier amongst the majority of fairly basic professional artist bios. With a slightly tongue-in-cheek opening voicing her desire ‘to be in a perpetual state of ‘driving out on the beach’’, creating a very human portrait of this artist. Despite this unconventional approach, a lot of the core aspects of her music do manage to shine through in this bio, particularly with the line ‘she strives for strange, but tries never to compromise on tenderness’, capturing a very particular feeling her music conjures. This more informal style of Bio echoes the vulnerability of her music and could be an effective strategy in the context of a streaming service page where someone is clearly already somewhat aware of the musician. It could also increase a fan’s connection to the music in the way it manages to humanise her and portray her as a grounded person. When I brought this into the seminar groups, it prompted a discussion on whether I should include some slightly more informal approaches within the bio, as my music has a similar focus on vulnerability. However, as my target audience is somewhat more geared to event managers/Gig promoters, I felt that maintaining a mostly by-the-book professional tone of description is most effective. It was after this that I added the quote from my album release post, deciding that that was a subtle way to include just a touch of the more personal side of things within my bio.

Connected to this, I brought up in the group seminars that I was unsure about how professional or necessary it is to include musical influences within my bio. My main discomfort with it was a somewhat vague feeling of tackiness that I felt it created by reducing myself down to comparisons of other musicians rather than just describing my music entirely in my own words. I also wondered if it comes across as somewhat pompous for an unknown musician to seemingly put themselves on the same level as very successful and well-known musicians. Whilst some of my group could see where I was coming from, they also suggested that it’s an incredibly quick and eye-catching way to immediately and easily showcase what kind of music you make that a gig promoter can see and very quickly know if you’d fit their work, working as an effective way to successfully draw in a reader. Someone also suggested that it illustrates an active depth of knowledge of the music scene in my specific field, which would be beneficial. After this, I decided to include some influences, but still didn’t want to overload it, so just added a couple of the main ones at the beginning.

Bibliography:

Mann, C. Spotify Artist Bio. Available online: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0BcrhuzQqziiZJXLSdiJu0 [Accessed 09/05/25]

Stevens, S. Spotify Artist Bio. Available online: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4MXUO7sVCaFgFjoTI5ox5c [Accessed 09/05/25]