AeTopus is a progressive

Electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

project performed and produced by

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

Bryan Tewell Hughes. The music has received critical acclaim within the

new-age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consid ...

and electronic music genres, and the album ''Between Empires'' won the award of Best Electronic album in the 2012 Zone Music Reporter Awards. The album ''Tempula'' was nominated in the Best Electronic category in the 2006 NAR Lifestyle Music Awards. Other nominations for ZMR Best Electronic album include the 2013

Extended play An extended play (EP) is a Sound recording and reproduction, musical recording that contains more tracks than a Single (music), single but fewer than an album. Contemporary EPs generally contain up to eight tracks and have a playing time of 1 ...

(EP) release ''Angels and Machines'', the 2015 CD ''When'', and the 2018 CD ''Totem Totum''. After having independently released seven albums and two EPs between 2002 and 2022, Hughes signed with the Spotted Peccary Music label for the release of the full-length album ''Cup'' in 2023.

Biography

Bryan Tewell Hughes (May 19, 1966) was born in

Quantico, Virginia Quantico (; formerly Potomac) is a town in southeastern Prince William County, Virginia, United States. The population was 578 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Quantico is approximately 35 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., bound ...

. He began taking piano lessons at age 6, and took up playing

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

at age 17. He claims to have been introduced to Electronic and New Age music by his grandparents in the early 1980s, and cites Ray Lynch and Kitaro (notable pioneers in the genre) as two of his early influences.AeTopus official website biography page
/ref> Between 1987 and 1997, he played

in local

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

Reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...

Funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

, and

Punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

bands in

Moscow, Idaho Moscow ( ) is a city and the county seat of Latah County, Idaho. Located in the North Central Idaho, North Central region of the state along the border with Washington (state), Washington, it had a population of 25,435 at the 2020 United States ...

(where he earned a B.F.A. in Fine Arts/Painting at

University of Idaho The University of Idaho (U of I, or UIdaho) is a public land-grant research university in Moscow, Idaho, United States. Established in 1889 and opened three years later, it was the state's sole university for 71 years, until 1963. The un ...

in 1989),

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

, and his current home of

Bellingham, Washington Bellingham ( ) is the county seat of Whatcom County, Washington, Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. It lies south of the Canada–United States border, U.S.–Canada border, between Vancouver, British Columbia, ...

. After releasing a solo industrial CD, AnthroPile: ''Take'' (1999), he began an

audio engineering Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound * Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of soun ...

internship at Binary Recording Studio in Bellingham. Hughes has dedicated his musical energy to AeTopus since the release of the full-length CD ''Memories of the Elder'' in 2002. He is also a visual artist, and is credited with the art and

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...

of most of his CD

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or cassette j-cards. Origin Liner notes are descended from the prog ...

Musical style

AeTopus' sound combines both synthesized and recorded elements, and often features sound bites or spoken human vocalizations that are used to solidify each album's theme. The music is reminiscent of early Electronic New Age in that it contains many common synthesizer sounds (such as arpeggio beeps and bass pads), yet has an exotic presence due to the use of

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

l and ethnic instruments (such as

violins The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino pic ...

pipe organs The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ...

, and African

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

). The music of AeTopus has generally been described as a blend of several Electronic music subgenres. Jim Brenholts of Ambient Visions referred to ''Memories of the Elder'' as a "hybrid", describing it as possessing "...elements of the Berlin school, pastoral new age, dark ambience and droning

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

. At the same time, it is none of those styles. In a 2008 review of ''Tempula'', Bill Binkelman o
Zone Music Reporter
noted that "...Hughes has fashioned a type of music that belongs to no country and yet also icall countries." Beginning with the 2020 EP ''Deep Variants'', the AeTopus sound departed from its

and pastoral roots, taking on a more experimental, urban feel. The evolution included elements of

intelligent dance music Intelligent dance music (IDM) is a style of electronic music originating in the early 1990s, defined by idiosyncratic experimentation rather than specific genre constraints.''"…the label 'IDM' (for avant-garde, 'intelligent dance music') see ...

and

glitch A glitch is a short-lived technical fault, such as a transient one that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among pl ...

, while still including sweeping ambient passages, location audio, and an emphasis on thematic development.

Discography

* 2002 - ''Memories of the Elder'' * 2006 - ''Tempula'' * 2012 - ''Between Empires'' * 2013 - ''Angels and Machines'' (EP) * 2015 - ''When'' * 2018 - ''Totem Totum'' * 2020 - ''Deep Variants'' (EP) * 2020 - ''VARIANT'' * 2022 - ''Urbus'' * 2023 - ''Cup'' * 2025 - ''iota''Spotted Peccary Music album page
/ref>

References

{{Authority control Ambient musicians New-age musicians Living people 1966 births