Perfect Worlds

Nadja & our friends from Japan Vampillia will be heading out on tour next week for some select dates in Western/Central Europe:

May 14 – Les Instants Chavires, Paris, FR *
May 15 – Magasin4, Brussels, BE *
May 16 – OCCII, Amsterdam, NL *
May 17 – DBs, Utrecht, NL *
May 18 – NK, Berlin, DE * ~
May 20 – Hafenklang, Hamburg, DE *
May 21 – Hühnermanhattan, Halle, DE *
May 22 – Pilot Klub, Prague, CZ *
May 23 – Rhiz, Vienna, AT *
May 24 – Stadtwerkstatt, Linz, AT
May 25 – W71, Weikersheim, DE
May 26 – Halle14, Karlsruhe, DE

* = w/ Attila Csihar as part of Vampillia
~ = w/ Crystal Shipsss

The tour is in support of a forthcoming re-issue of Nadja & Vampillia‘s collaborative album The Primitive World, re-mastered, re-worked and with a new track and accordingly re-titled The Perfect World. This will be out shortly on CD and limited LP from Important Records. We should also have copies of our new LP Flipper due any day now from Oaken Palace Records.

Flippin’

Nadja’s forthcoming LP Flipper is now available for pre-order from Oaken Palace Records, including a few package deals where you can get other Oaken Palace releases (which includes Caudal, of course). Oaken Palace is a charitable record label, with all proceeds going to various environmental agencies. Nadja‘s album is dedicated to whales and dolphins.

The first track from Flipper can be streamed above. This album is a much more minimal, subdued affair, with brief moments of heaviness, and features guest contributions from Angela Chan (of A-Sun Amissa, among others) and Peter Broderick on strings.

Stocking The Shelves 2

In a brief lull between tours, we’ve added a number of titles to our webshop, some new, some newly re-issued, and some back catalogue newly re-acquired:

• The Japanese re-issues of Nadja‘s Bodycage and The Bungled & The Botched from Daymare Recordings, each with a bonus disc, packaged in gatefold digipacks with re-worked original artwork.

• The CD re-issue of Nadja‘s Corrasion from Miskatonic Soundlab

• CD version of B/B/S/‘s Brick Mask (12″ and 7″ versions are still available directly from Sonic Pieces)

• Aidan‘s new solo releases Aneira from Glacial Movements, Mépris (with Jakob Thiesen on drums), and Already Drowning from Gizeh Records (we should have copies of the vinyl on the upcoming Nadja tour with Vampillia)

• restock of Aidan‘s older albums Fantasma Parastasie (with Tim Hecker)

• and lastly, Aidan‘s new cassette-only release Souvenirs Of The Eternal Present from Anthem Records (North Americans can order direct from Anthem)

New World Pre-Order

There are now a couple pre-order opportunities for debut releases from two of Aidan‘s new projects, Caudal and Adoran. If you haven’t already checked out either project, Caudal is a something of a spacey krautrock trio featuring Gareth Sweeney on bass, Felipe Salazar on drums, and Aidan on guitar. Adoran is a sludgy, drone-doom duo featuring Dorian Williamson from Northumbria on bass and Aidan on drums. Both albums can be streamed and/or pre-ordered below:

Pre-order LP from Oaken Palace Records.

Pre-order CD from Consouling Sounds.

Oaken Palace Records will also be releasing the next Nadja album as well, hopefully in time for our upcoming EU tour with our Japanese friends Vampillia. The first track from the album is streaming here:

And speaking of tours, Nadja will be playing a handful of shows in the Toronto area this coming weekend:

11-04-13: The Spill, Peterborough, ON
12-04-13: New Harbours Music @ Christ Church Cathedral, Hamilton
13-04-13: Feast In The East @ Polyhaus, Toronto

And Whisper Room, my trio with Jakob Thiesen on drums and Neil Wiernik on bass/laptop will be playing their first show in who knows how long at:

16-04-13: The Ambient Ping at Supermarket, Toronto, ON

This Is A Photograph Of Me

Already Drowning is now available for pre-order from Gizeh Records. The LP edition is limited to 300 copies, so if you want one, act accordingly!

The full album is streamable, for a limited time, on Exclaim.

Here are a few press quotes if you want to read what other people think about the album:

“Already Drowning isn’t all soft water sounds: in one of the albums’ greatest moments the tempest of doom that swirls through Nadja emerges on ‘Tout Juste Sous La Surface, Je Guette’ [vocals by Geneviève Castrée, aka O Paon].” – BlogTO

“Schöne Nixen und hässliche Sirenen locken mit Wehklagen und Schmeichelstimme, man möchte trösten, helfen, und wird schliesslich vom brausenden Strudel in die Tiefe gerissen.” – 78s

“[T]extured this is! With reversed vocals, lots of guitar parts, spacey drums and all sorts of late 60s studio techniques to keep this psychedelic. But a piece like ‘Mein Zwilling, Mein Verlorener’ [vocals by Joanna Kupnicka] is on the other hand deceivingly simple, with just repeated guitar patterns, accordion, vocals and a set of drums that remind me of John Densmore’s more jazzy parts in The Doors.” – Vital Weekly

Lastly, I did an interview with the Berlin monthly Exberliner recently if you want to read some more background on the album.

Music Makes Me Sad

Some reading material:

An article on slowcore I wrote for Noisy.

Some listening material:

A mixtape I made for Klankschap featuring some of my favourite female artists, including songs by contributors to my forthcoming album Already Drowning.

Some opportunities to leave the house:

Aidan Baker CA/US East Coast Tour w/ Insect Ark:

28-03-13: Casa Del Popolo, Montreal, QC – also w/ Benoît Pioulard
29-03-13: Aviary Gallery, Boston, MA – also w/ Animal Hospital
30-03-13: Big Snow Buffalo Lounge, New York, NY
01-04-13: First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA
02-04-13: Metro Gallery, Baltimore, MD
03-04-13: Garfield Art Works, Pittsburg, PA
04-04-13: MOTR, Cincinnati, OH
05-04-13: The Burlington, Chicago, IL – also w/ Steven Hess
07-04-13: June Records, Toronto, ON – also w/ Clara Engel

Nadja GTA Dates:

11-04-13: The Spill, Peterborough, ON
12-04-13: New Harbours Music Series @ Christ Church Cathedral, Hamilton, ON
13-04-13: Feast In The East @ Polyhaus, Toronto, ON

And lastly, some more opportunities to accumulate:

My collaboration with Plurals, part of Southern Records Latitude Series is out now. Available from Southern Records, the Broken Spine Webshop, and digitally here:

Brick Moon Replica

The debut release Brick Mask, plus the limited companion 7″ Half Moon, from Aidan‘s new trio B/B/S/ is now available from the Sonic Pieces/Miasmah Records Webshop. The CD version is not yet available but you can pre-order it.

A track each from the 12″ and the 7″ are streaming here:

Nothing From Nothing

My collaboration with Troum, recorded in 2011 live at Ghutto-M Studios in Bremen, Germany, is now out as a limited cd on the Russian label Alone At Last. The cd is packaged in a custom designed, handmade folding sleeve and includes a set of 11 full-colour postcards mixing computer generated images and photos of ink/light paintings.

I have physical copies available in the Broken Spine Webshop and it is available digitally here:

We still have copies of the Nadja/Troum collaboration from 2010 in the webshop as well.

Troum and Drone Records have been long-time friends and supporters. We have played and toured together many times, both in Europe and North America, including our very first show in our adoptive hometown of Berlin at Ausland in 2007. Drone Records was an early supporter of my music when I first started making ambient/experimental music and released my very first 7″ Same River Twice back in 2004, and Nadja‘s first (and only, so far) 10″ LP The Ruins Of Morning (both of which are long out of print now).

Der Seltene Fang

My new solo album Already Drowning has just been announced for release April 15 2013 from Gizeh Records. This album is a much more structured than previous releases, with each track featuring a guest vocalist, and is something of a song-cycle inspired by myths and folktales of female water spirits like Mélusine, Lorelei, and Rusalka. The first and title track is streaming here:

And if you visit the Gizeh Records site, you can download it as part of their new releases sampler.

Clara Engel sings on the title track. The other guest vocalists are: Jessica Bailiff, Valérie Niederoest & Maude Oswald (from Toboggan), Joanna Kupnicka (from The Cold Hand), Geneviève Castrée (aka Ô Paon), Liz Hysen (from Picastro), and Carla Bozulich (from Evangelista, The Geraldine Fibbers).

I will be touring in support of the album in the UK/EU next month with A-Sun Amissa:

17-02-13: Mad Ferret, Preston, UK
18-02-13: Wharf Chambers, Leeds, UK
19-02-13: Taylor John’s, Coventry, UK
20-02-13: The Exchange, Bristol, UK
21-02-13: Cafe Oto, London, UK
22-02-13: Poortegebouw, Rotterdam, NL
23-02-13: Vera, Grongingen, NL
24-02-13: Gängeviertel Fabrik, Hamburg, DE
25-02-13: Best Monday Ever, Copenhagen, DK
26-02-13: 1000Fryd, Aalborg, DK
27-02-13: Ljud, Aarhus, DK
01-03-13: Schokoladen, Berlin, DE

New Year Of Snake Listenings

Happy year of the Snake!

If anyone would like a teaser of songs from Caudal‘s forthcoming release Forever In Another World on Oaken Palace Records, here is a recording of our debut show in Berlin last month:

And if anyone would like to sample the first track from B/B/S/‘s likewise forthcoming debut Brick Mask on Miasmah Records, you can stream it here:

B/B/S/ will be heading out on a short tour at the end of the month:

01-23 @ Monarch, Berlin, DE
01-25 @ Christuskirche, Bochum, DE
01-26 @ Plane Ari Home Gigs/L’auréole, Bethencourt, FR
01-27 @ Les Ateliers Claus, Brussels, BE

And in other new project news, Adoran Aidan‘s collaborative project with Dorian Williamson (of Northumbria) will be releasing a full-length album with Consouling Sounds later this year. An unmastered excerpt of the first track from this album is streamable here:

Some of you may recognize Adoran‘s name from the Drone Compendium Series slowly making its way into the world via Beta-lactam Ring Records. I know this series has been long-delayed…but these LPs will eventually get out there! The third in the series, Mnemosyne‘s Air Grows Small Fingers, should be out soon!

And finally, here are a few older/out-of-print Aidan Baker/Nadja releases newly available on the BSP Bandcamp page as pay-what-you-want downloads: