Caldera Lakes on Ecstatic Peace (cassette review)

Caldera Lakes

Arranged

Ecstatic Peace e#110c cassette (edition of 100)

Rolling waves of white noise, feedback, and even mic noise wash over the clarion singing and drone-based ambience of Caldera Lakes (Eva Aguila and Brittany Gould) on their "arranged" cassette (out now on Ecstatic Peace). In the midst of this deliberately lo-fi and noise distressed ambience lies a primeval aesthetic that contrasts clangorous stabs, bleary utterances, and muscular cries with delicate arpeggios and strummed guitars.

While getting ahold of these limited run artifacts is great fun - a scavenger hunt for adventurous music listeners (I found mine on a recent visit to one of my favorite haunts Downtown in NYC: Other Music) - it's a pity that this release hasn't gained wider currency - as yet! The band, like so many others, is going to SXSW this year. One hopes that they bring a bunch of their tapes, CDRs, and other releases along (may they need runs >100!), and that the resultant buzz yields anything but lo-fi results for their careers.

CD Review: Aidan Baker, "Still Life"

Aidan Baker

Still Life

Prima CD 002

Aidan Baker is probably best known for his soundscapes that involve droning guitars and ample distortion. But this time out, on his Prima full length Still Life, the Toronto native left the guitars at home altogether. Instead, he performs all of the instruments himself, focusing on piano, electronic manipulations, upright bass, and drums.

Still Life contains four compositions, each exceeding ten minutes in duration, that combine the gradual, inexorable drive of slowcore with inflections of a modern jazz rhythm section and flourishes of avant-classical. Baker doesn't shy away from crunching dissonance where required. A signature example is the opening of "Refuge from Oblivion," where cascades of punctilious piano disrupt the calm surface that pervaded the previous track.

Often, multiple layers of rhythm compete for supremacy, creating a multifaceted, but never cluttered, interplay. All the while, there is a slow-brewing underlying pulse that undergirds the whole with a supply architectural sensibility.

Artists seeking to combine experimental music and jazz should take note of Aidan's fluent amalgamations.