Rich Aucoin has never been short on ambitions or concepts. From his first EP, Personal Publication — on which he played over two dozen instruments and wrote it to sync to How the Grinch Stole Christmas — to We’re All Dying to Live’s 500 performers, to his death mediation Release, the pop anthemist has always dug deep and gone big. But this is the first time he’s written a record from the grounds of a crumbling empire.
Aucoin wrote United States (2020), observing America from the ground level, while cycling across it for Mental Health America and the Canadian Mental Health Association. While taking this Robert Frank approach, Aucoin composed a song for each of the 12 states he pedaled through. The record is as much about the current socio-political climate of America as it is about states of consciousness; as much fuelled by the burgeoning American protest movement or Hedges’ social commentary as it is fuelled by McKenna/Pollan world of psychedelics and meditation apps.
In the spring of 2018, Aucoin set off from Los Angeles on one of his customarily challenging (and eco-friendly) tours. Final stop: New York City. Vehicle: Bicycle.
He traveled the perimeter of the United States, down the west coast, across the south, and up the eastern seaboard. He saw a country, two years into a dictatorship, divided and hurting. A pair of wheels and his own two feet took him through landscapes varied in their construction and grandeur, from the boarded-up storefronts of Route 66 to the fountain formation of Red Rocks. Tiny towns and major cities. Thriving and fading.
Aucoin has been long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize twice, and his music video for “Brian Wilson is A.L.I.V.E.” won the Prism Prize. Aucoin has built a reputation as one of the best live shows in Canada according to CBC Radio3. His albums all sync to old movies like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon with The Wizard of Oz. He has performed dozens of festivals including Osheaga, The Great Escape, Les Eurockéennes, Berlin Music Festival, Art Basel Miami, Luminato Art Festival, Iceland Airwaves, SXSW, and Pop Montreal.
