Aidan Baker
Aidan Baker is a canadian musician and writer currently based in toronto. He performs as a solo artist and with the groups Nadja and ARC. A classically trained multi-instrumentalist, his primary instrument is the electric guitar with which he creates music ranging from experimental/drone to ambient post-rock to contemporary classical. He has released numerous albums on labels from around the world + has authored several books of prose/poetry.
Aidan Baker is a canadian musician and writer currently based in toronto. He performs as a solo artist and with the groups Nadja and ARC. A classically trained multi-instrumentalist, his primary instrument is the electric guitar with which he creates music ranging from experimental/drone to ambient post-rock to contemporary classical. He has released numerous albums on labels from around the world + has authored several books of prose/poetry.
Pithovirii
Glacial Movements is proud to present the soundscapes of Canadian artist Aidan Baker. His first appearance was with the song "Beneath the Ice" on "Cryosphere", the first and only compilation of the entire catalogue. Then in 2013, with "Aneira" (Welsh for 'snow') composed exclusively for GM, through the use of the 12-string acoustic guitar. Pithovirii is his new concept album, which was in part inspired by Vladimir Sorokin's novel Ice Trilogy which in turn led to reading about the Tunguska meteor…
The Evelyn Tables
*300 copies limited edition* The Evelyn Tables, the oldest known anatomical preparations in Europe, dating to 1646, are an early yet humbling insight into the networks within the human body, a network within natural networks that govern the physical constraints of the human material existence. Observing them from the outside, they are uncannily reminiscent of a floral network, yet at the same time strangely familliar. The soundscapes of this work attempt to convey these ideas viscerally, through…
Songs Of Undoing
Recorded mid-pandemic, Songs of Undoing cannot help but have a sort of mid- or post-apocalyptic overlying concept, lyrically dealing with themes of exodus and travel / wandering, self-reliance, the weight of history...with pointed references to two post-apocalyptic, societal / environmental collapse novels, Octavia Butler's "Parables of The Sower" and Kate Wilhelm's "Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang." Musically, the songs move between minimal slowcore and a sort of textural noise-rock or what mig…
Aneira
Aidan Baker is a multi-instrumentalist, classically-trained in flute, but best known as a guitarist. Using various electronic effects combined with prepared and/or alternate methods of playing the guitar, he creates music which generally falls within the ambient/experimental genres but draws on influences from shoegaze and post-rock, contemporary classical and jazz. Over the course of the last decade, Baker has released numerous recorded works, both solo and with his duo Nadja, plus various othe…
True Dreaming (To Bend The World)
**limited to 200 copies** Ambient oriented album by Aidan Baker on Italian label Dissipatio
An Instance of Rising/Liminoid
A unique release of two contemporary classical works, written by Aidan Baker and performed live by orchestras in Poland and Latvia. "An Instance of Rising" w/ Spółdzielnia Muzyczna: The curator of Sacrum Profanum, Krzysztof Pietraszewski, a festival in Krakow, Poland, in 2017 invited several musicians involved in the "avant rock" music scene to compose a piece for the Spółdzielnia Muzyczna Contemporary Ensemble, with the intention of bringing an experimental rock music aesthetic to a contemporar…
The Bit
The Bit is the second recorded collaboration between Aidan Baker (Nadja / Hypnodrone Ensemble), Simon Goff (Jóhann Johannsson / Hildur Gudnadottir) and Thor Harris (Swans, Shearwater, Thor & Friends). Following on from 2017’s Noplace album, The Bit treads a similar path in terms of the recording process as the trio spent a day improvising at Voxton Studios in Berlin whilst on a European tour. The result was then edited and moulded into six hypnotic tracks that ebb and flow with beauty and ease.
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See Through
Limited edition of 300 copies. White/Clear splatter vinyl, housed in a heavyweight 350gsm, matte-finished sleeve. See Through is a new collaboration between Aidan Baker (Nadja), Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer, Mara, Sige Records) and renowned percussionist Jon Mueller. "The project was brought to life through Baker exploring textural rhythms created by sampling small, sharp and abrupt sounds on the electric guitar and then sequencing them in a drum machine to form the bedrock of the tracks. Mueller th…
Invisible Cities
Invisible Cities, the first collaboration between Aidan Baker (Nadja, B/B/S) and bass clarinetist Gareth Davis (Oiseaux-Tempête), offers the finest ambient/chamber jazz/subtle drones of a highly meditative quality. Be it solo, as member of the drone duo Nadja or B/B/S (his trio with Andrea Belfi and Erik Skodvin, aka Svarte Greiner) or in various collaborations with artists like Tim Hecker or Thisquietarmy, the Berlin-based Canadian is one of the most productive and versatile artists when i…
Tryptichs: Variations On A Melody
Aidan Baker's (Nadja) Triptychs takes inspiration from Erik Satie's compositions Gymnopédies and his notion of "furniture music," which many consider a precursor to contemporary ambient music. Each "triptych" is based around a simple, slow-moving melodic line, which repeats three times with the addition of a harmonic line upon each repetition, culminating in a three part harmony. Various musicians from different ensembles and musical backgrounds -- Peter Broderick, Julia Kent, Leah Buckaref…
Nihtes niht
'The music supposed to be a soundtrack for lonely ice-soundscapes... when you stand there on lonely wide inhuman places and feel lost, but you still stand on ice...' - Baraka[H] The newest collaboration between masters of evocative noise/drone ambient is divided into four long tracks, four directions of nothing. The tracks are entitled in middle ageindo-german language, for north, east, south, west. And the album title means nothing from nothing - very weird notion, as it doesn't exist anymore i…
Glass Crocodile Medicine
500 hand-numbered copies on blue 180gm vinyl in diecut cardstock outer sleeve, with foilstamped cardstock insert and colour insert. Aidan Baker brought British tour-mates Plurals to the studio with him. A gradual unfurling of intricate layers of sound builds and envelopes the listener over 'Dead Foxes in the Street's' 20 minutes, creating a warm and uplifting aural atmosphere. 'Turning Children into Mice' is a brooding, decidedly sinister beast, weaving a repetitive and increasingly dark threat,…
Pure Drone (Drone Compendium One)
The album title certainly does not deceive. But there is something absolutely worthy about Baker's approach to drone composition. He employs a subtle, patient counterpoint that offers an appealing spaciousness when played loud. The music is utterly enveloping, seemingly forcing the listener into a meditative state (Do not operate heavy equipment while listening, unless that heavy equipment is speakers or a spaceship). The compelling organic majesty of these 2 long tracks wafts deep oceani…
Smudging
Backwards proudly presents a new Aidan Baker vinyl LP, issued in a edition of 450 copies. For this releaseAidan Baker, co-founder of Nadja and member of Arc, is aided by his brother, Richard Baker, at drums. Recorded variously in Toronto and Berlin, 'Smudging' includes six songs comprised in two long epic tracks, with guitar textures and hypnotic rhythm structures to create a beautiful and dreamy listening experience. In the wake of his most experimental and characterized by dilated atmospheres …
Green & Cold
A kind of different album from A. Baker (Nadja) as it leans more into shoegazery and drone-pop songs. “Green & Cold” is the strength of strings proved by A. Baker. His soft lyrics suffuse weightlessly into a humming cloud of perfumed guitar scour. Yes, when gazed upon, these patent leather shoes really do reflect up. However, “G&C” is accomplishes much more than throwing Loveless lights back up to Heaven. An ass-load or so of previous avant-garde releases has developed in Baker a skill-se…
Book Of Nods
A new landscape is painted out of darkness by progressive strokes of the dawn. The finished piece is neither night nor day, but the transformation itself. Aidan Baker's (Nadja) "Book Of Nods" crests experimental peaks in similarly paced sonic transmigrations. His lustrous chimera blooms open in shifting onion layers built out of slow-moaning guitar, flute, organ and drums. The resonant frequencies of quietly crashing nodes vibrate the ozone with a sub-textural beating of multi-pianic fea…
Songs Of Flowers & Skin
Doomgaze. Is that a thing? In ancient times "Songs Of Flowers & Skin" might have done time on 4AD, Creation, or even Sarah. Except of course, for the slender demonic tail woven into the melodies, which would have left a smoldering pile of pointy shoes in its wake. Though the tracks here are not metal, there is no lacking of heavy. The songs (yes, songs) simmer to a point just below explosion. Aidan chooses to excavate with atmosphere in lieu of caterwauling electricity, filling the spaces…
Only Stories
Latest from the uber prolific Aidan Baker, of mighty doomdronedirge duo Nadja, and as we've discovered in the past, Nadja is Baker's outlet for the heavier stuff, while working under his own name he tends to veer toward the minimal, ambient and drone side of the spectrum. So that's what we were sort of expecting from this, and while it definitely does lean more toward those sounds that the crush of Nadja, it's actually something else entirely, a solo acoustic record. That's right, just ac…
Plague Of Fantasies
Brand new solo material from Aidan Baker, one of the most prolific musicians recording at the moment, Aidan creates such a wide array of musical sound its hard to keep track, not only does he perform as part of the fantastic Nadja, as well as in projects such as ARC, and collaborating with other luminaries such as Tim Hecker, he releases a whole host of solo material. This new solo record is really something, pulling together all the genres he works in, fusing heavy drones, with broken drums bea…
White Nights/Drone Fields
Aidan Baker's anodyne ambiences almost act as aural dream machines on their own. But now Baker has collaborated with actual film makers for his Opus Dei, embodied in this double DVD set (one credited as Aidan Baker and the other to Nadja). Clocking in at nearly 6 hours, this in-home installation is the ultimate video aquarium for the acid-minded. Baker's thrum-scapes lay back and patiently coo mantras something akin to mid-period Nocturnal Emissions or Vidna Obmana, while spectacular visions wen…