Baker, Aidan & Claire Brentall

Delirious Things

Pleasence Records

***Delirious Things is an exploration of Baker's interest in 80s-influenced cold-wave, shoegaze, and synth-pop from recording artists like Factory Records' Durutti Column and Section 25 and 4AD's Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil. Combining song-oriented tracks with abstract interludes, the primary instrument on Delirious Things is a 1980s Casio synthesizer, rather than guitar, though Baker processes the synth through his usual guitar effect pedals, creating heavy, layered washes of droning synth sounds overlaying electronic rhythms and pulsing bass lines. Baker is joined by guest vocalist Claire Brentnall (of the UK project Shield Patterns) whose voice is reminiscent of Liz Fraser and Kate Bush but still distinctly her own.  Aidan Baker is a Canadian musician and writer who has toured and performed around the world, both solo and with his partner in the “ambient-doom” duo Nadja. A prolific artist, Baker has released numerous albums on such labels as Alien8 Recordings, Important Records, and Gizeh Records. He is also the author of a several books.

Baker, Aidan

The Confessional Tapes

Pleasence Records

Aidan Baker's The Confessional Tapes is another of his more song-oriented albums, though here drifting between slowcore, dreampop, abstract jazz, and glitchy electronica. Baker originally began working on this record in Toronto several years ago, but lost the audio files in a hard drive crash. Those files which were recoverable from the original recordings, corrupted and glitchy, ended up forming the backbone of the album, providing a fragmentary and abstract structure to the songs as Baker worked on them in his adoptive home of Berlin. Aidan Baker is a Canadian musician and writer who has toured and performed around the world, both solo and with his partner in the “ambient-doom” duo Nadja. A prolific artist, Baker has released numerous albums on such labels as Alien8 Recordings, Important Records, and Drone Records. He is also the author of a several books.