AeTopus is the electronic ambient music project of Bellingham, Washington-based Bryan Hughes and 'Cup' is his first release on the Spotted Peccary label. For over two decades, he has been crafting a personal blend of Electronica, pastoral New Age, and Dark Ambient styles. The music has evolved gently through each release, but an AeTopus signature is embedded in each song and album. 'Cup" is 13 tracks in 63 minutes and not what I would call strictly "ambient" but more along the lines of atmospheric instrumental electronica, bolstered by electro-acoustic rhythms. It took me a fair amount of plays of 'Cup' to come to any conclusion about the album, and even after that, I'm still left with a vague uneasiness about it. Perhaps it's Hughes' compositional methodology that's responsible for it.

When composing, AeTopus builds lush blankets of sound from pulsing electronic sequences and traditional percussion, then subtracts and subtracts from them. As a trained visual artist, AeTopus learned the value of negative space and applies that knowledge to these composition. This approach leaves fragments of interlocking elements with simultaneous sparseness and complexity. In theory, this should work out great, drawing the listener in to what is perceived, and leaving room for what can be imagined. In actuality, I couldn't help but think something was missing. Perhaps there was too much subtraction, or just not enough "addition". I kept searching for an underlying audible theme, but none came to me, and I listened to the whole album multiple times. If you're a regular listener to Spotted Peccary releases, you will undoubtedly find this one different than the others. The rhythmic aspects here may detract from the bubble of ambient bliss for some, but I found most of that amiably engaging. There just wasn't enough that was memorable to me to latch onto.