Aidan Baker - Dry

Mellow U · September 7, 2009

AIDAN BAKER

DRY

INST007 / LIMITED EDITION OF 500

Quote
Just in time for the end of summer, we’ve got the perfect record to play while you watch the leaves turn colors and die: DRY. Veteran experimental guitarist Aidan Baker’s stellar contribution to Install couldn’t get any more straightforward. As the title would indicate, this is raw, live Baker we’re hearing, stripped down to the barest of components, no effects, no overdubs, warts and all. We’ve been following Baker’s output for years and we have to admit that we’ve never heard the man sound quite like this before. Unlike anything else we can think of, Dry is a contemplative experience that is as much physical as it is immaterial. Baker’s evocative playing style has never quite been this bare, and Dry proves that beneath all of the drenching reverbs and delays on his prior works, there is an incredible improvisational force at work. Sonically it mines monochrome landscapes of unpainted canvas, weaving in and out of melodic motifs, as if it were recorded in a dream state, while compositionally it lies somewhere between Jandek and Satwa, being both dissonant and meditative. Confessing and immersive, this is a record we cannot praise enough, and since there probably isn’t much that hasn’t already been said about Aidan Baker by now, we’ll get to the point: If you only hear one Baker release in 2009, make it this one – we’re certain you won’t regret it!

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