No two ways about it: the scope and ambition of Aidan Baker’s follow-up to 2012’s ‘Already Drowning’ is immense. In fact, it’s not simply an album, but two albums – hence a double CD release which comprises two separate but interconnected albums.
Baker’s loose concept was that the two bodies of work would bridge the more abstract/experimental and song-oriented natures of his output. As such, we find many of the tracks extant in two distinct versions – and distinct they are.
With backwards notes drawn out over soft sonic contrails, piano notes and motor engines career headlong into patches of disturbance and distortion, and nothing is quite as it seems. Juxtaposing elements are rife, discord abates and accedes to tranquillity, and vice versa: ambience breaks into rhythmically-led passages with strolling basslines and intuitive percussion. Swampy atmospherics transition unexpectedly into warping wefts of static and scrapes of skittering feedback.
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Mellow glitchtronica and bubbling Krautrock ambience jostle against one another to render ‘Half Lives’ a work built on contrasts and juxtapositions.
It’s a lot to take in, and not all of it’s immediately digestible. Which is precisely why this is such a strong and ultimately rewarding album.
Aidan Baker - Half Lives Online
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