On “Duel,” Jake Aaron distils a moment of tension into a sharp, restrained meditation on miscommunication and emotional asymmetry. With minimalist poetry and a tone both pained and composed, Aaron narrates the familiar frustration of being earnest with someone who always seems to dodge sincerity, pulling “the joker from the cards” and staying strategically aloof. Encapsulating the unbridgeable emotional distance between two people inhabiting the same space but experiencing it from opposite ends.
