Jon DeRosa (b. 21 December, 1978) is a guitarist, composer and singer/songwriter currently residing in Los Angeles. Raised in the small shore town of Manasquan, New Jersey, DeRosa grew up studying classical and flamenco guitar. Influenced by everything from Andres Segovia to Danzig to 4AD and Projekt Records, in his early teens he began writing and recording music. Although DeRosa had been involved with several musical projects by the time he turned eighteen, his goth-folk band Dead Leaves Rising was the first of his endeavors to draw national attention and continued to garner acclaim until it was disbanded in 2002.
In 1997, DeRosa moved to New York City and while studying Music Technology at NYU, he went deaf in his right ear. The accompanying aural hallucinations inspired DeRosa to start Aarktica, a mostly instrumental, guitar-based atmospheric project that still remains active to date. Aarktica’s debut release No Solace In Sleep (Silber Records, 2000) was described by George Parsons of Dream Magazine as “songlike as a sedated Durutti Column, or as ectoplasmic as Flying Saucer Attack sleepwalking through Windy & Carl’s home movies of their trip to Iceland.”
In the difficult years following his hearing loss DeRosa began studying Indian classical vocal music with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. His studies with them (and later, composer and former Young disciple Michael Harrison) would be particularly influential to DeRosa and affect all of his musical output from that time forward.
Aarktica began to forge a unique sound within the post-rock/shoegaze world of the early 2000’s, becoming a favorite of John Peel after releasing 2001’s Morning One EP (Ochre Record) in the UK and receiving more national attention in the US after recording an album for Darla Record’s Bliss Out series in 2002. At a time when the New York scene was in the limelight because of the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, Animal Collective, and TV on The Radio, Aarktica was performing at neighboring venues with the likes of Stephen Brodsky (Cave In), Growing, No Neck Blues Band, Ty Braxton (Battles), Mahogany, and many other burgeoning NY experimental artists.
Around the time of Aarktica’s 2003 release Pure Tone Audiometry, Jon Pareles of the New York Times began to take notice and wrote, “Aarktica’s songs are extended reveries, built on loops of guitars and drums and occasional voices. The musical elements hover and circle, float by or bristle with distortion as the songs drift through serenity and trouble.”
Throughout the 2000’s, DeRosa continued performing and releasing music as Aarktica, in addition to playing guitar with New York City chamber pop ensemble Flare. DeRosa also briefly recorded under the name Pale Horse and Rider, releasing two albums of urban country songs during this time, recorded with Alan Sparhawk (Low) and Paul Oldham (Palace Brothers), respectively.
Rob O’Connor at CMJ remarked “DeRosa’s not unlike the downcast end of Springsteen. ‘Jersey Coast Line’ [from 2002’s These Are The New Good Times] could very well be Nebraska‘s 11th track.”
DeRosa would revisit Aarktica in 2005, releasing Bleeding Light, and supporting Low and Pedro the Lion in New York City, as well as embarking on Aarktica’s first West Coast tour. In 2006, DeRosa lent his voice to Stephin Merritt’s opera “The Peach Blossom Fan”, as the role of Hou Fang Yu. Some of his contributions were first featured on Merritt’s Showtunes album (Nonesuch, 2006). “The Peach Blossom Fan” became available in its entirety in 2008 (Nonesuch).
DeRosa would revisit Aarktica again in 2009 and release In Sea (Silber Records) and subsequently the companion album In Sea Remixes, the latter featuring album tracks remixed by The Declining Winter, Suckers, Landing, and many others in the electronic/experimental world. In Sea would become Aarktica’s most acclaimed album since its debut, and its dirge cover and accompanying video of Danzig’s “Am I Demon?” would become a cult favorite.
Around this time, Popmatters writes, “Why isn’t Jon DeRosa’s work as Aarktica mentioned in the same breath as Stars of the Lid or Eluvium when discussing ambient/drone music? In a genre where so much of the music is disposable-but-pleasant wallpaper, DeRosa deserves to stand with the aforementioned, more well-known bands. That an album of echoing, overlapping guitar tones and peaceful organ drones can take you on as compelling a journey as Aarktica does here is something to be cherished.”
In 2011, DeRosa unveiled his first eponymous release, the Anchored EP. Novelist Ed Park said of it: “At first, Jon DeRosa’s Anchored EP, a quartet of gorgeously layered chamber-pop shanties, seems leagues away from the voluptuous Lovecraftian drift he perfected under his moniker Aarktica. But there are dark spaces here, too, room to brood in the sweet gravel of his voice, in Julia Kent’s penetrating cello lines, and in the quiet violence of the lyrics. With a depth that belies its brief running time, Anchored is so perfect that it literally gives you the chills.”
In the Summer of 2012, Mother West Records released a vinyl edition of DeRosa’s debut full-length A Wolf In Preacher’s Clothes. And in the months that followed, DeRosa signed with Rocket Girl Records in the UK and A Wolf In Preacher’s Clothes was released throughout Europe. In early 2013, after leaving New York City for Los Angeles, Aarktica contributed a track to Lucy Walker’s film The Crash Reel. The music-heavy documentary boasts a soundtrack that also features Stars of the Lid, Grizzly Bear, DJ Shadow, Chemical Brothers, Moby, Lykki Li, M83 and many others.
In the Fall of 2013, DeRosa released the single “Signs of Life” via Rocket Girl Records and toured Europe in support of punk/no-wave icon Lydia Lunch. And in 2015 DeRosa released his second eponymous full-length album Black Halo, produced by Charles Newman (The Magnetic Fields) and featuring collaborations with singer/songwriter Carina Round (Puscifer, Tears for Fears) and Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields.
After a several years hiatus, DeRosa revisited his Aarktica project once again and released Mareación in August of 2019, an album influenced heavily by his work in recent years in the field of shamanic healing and with plant medicines. In 2020, DeRosa donned the Aarktica moniker again for a collaboration with Sam Rosenthal of Black Tape for a Blue Girl. Together they released the mini-album Eating Rose Petals on Sam's Projekt Records label.
This collaboration proved to jumpstart Aarktica back into active mode, and in Fall 2022 DeRosa would release We Will Find the Light on Darla Records, a sprawling ambient folk album available on CD and Double LP. In early 2023, Aarktica would release Paeans on Projekt Records, the first entirely instrumental/ambient Aarktica release since 2000's No Solace in Sleep.
When DeRosa is not playing music he spends his days seeing clients as a Somatic Healer at his private practice SomaticLA, as well as operating his retail business HanaqPacha, specializing in shamanic items and rare findings from South America. He still resides in Los Angeles, and when not pursuing his shamanic studies, enjoys attending as many LA Dodgers games as possible.
Jon DeRosa / A Selected Discography
As Aarktica:
Morning One (Remastered) / Projekt Records (2023)
Paeans / Projekt Records (2023)
We Will Find the Light / Darla Records (2022)
Eating Rose Petals (with Black Tape for a Blue Girl) / Projekt Records (2020)
Mareación / HanaqPacha Music (2019)
Ceremony EP / Fnord Tapes (Italy) (2016)
In Sea Remixes CD / Silber Records (2010)
In Sea CD / Silber Records (2009)
Matchless Years CD / Darla Records (2007)
Live at KUCI / Silber Records (2006)
Bleeding Light CD / Darla Records (2005)
Pure Tone Audiometry CD / Silber Records (2003)
Or you could just go through your whole life... (Bliss Out V.18) CD, Darla Records (2002)
Morning One CD EP / Ochre Records / (2001)
No Solace in Sleep CD / Silber Records / (2000)
As Jon DeRosa
Black Halo CD / Rocket Girl (2015)
A Wolf In Preacher’s Clothes CD/LP / Rocket Girl/Mother West (2012)
Anchored EP CD / Silber Records (2011)
As Pale Horse and Rider:
Moody Pike CD / Darla Records (US)/Agenda Records (UK) (2005)
These Are The New Good Times CD / Darla Records (2003)
The Alcohol EPs CD / Silber Records (2002) (w/Rivulets and Remora)
As a member of Flare:
Big Top/Encore CD/LP / Affairs of The Heart (2011)
Circa+ CD / Mother West (2005)
Definitive CD EP / Mother West (2001)
Circa CD / Subliminal Violence (2000)
As Dead Leaves Rising:
Waking Up On The Wrong Side Of No One CD / Plow City Records (2001)
Shadow Complex CD / Brighter Records / (1997)