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Released on April 19, 2014 via ConSouling Sounds
Aidan Baker‘s beautiful music has been an inspiration and awe for many years now. The discography of the Toronto based musician is immense and the majority of you for sure know him mainly through his solo work and his duo Nadja. Among the thousands of other projects he is involved in, his outfit with Jakob Thiesen and Neil Weirnik is really interesting. Whisper Room, as the project is called, is something different compared to his other collaborations: it’s not an abstract and experimental ambient piece as his recent work with Thisquietarmy or as his split together with Tim Hecker, but it’s rock oriented, a kind of well balanced mix of space rock and post-rock with a hint of drone. Aidan, Jakob and Neil released their first album Birch White in 2009 and now they are back with the second album The Cruelest Month released via the Belgian label ConSouling Sounds.
The Cruelest Month delivers frequency rich atmospherics, punctuated by tight percussion with extremely high knack for attention to detail. The organic melodies flow into each other, sometimes running in parallel, other times intertwining and creating a sound that leaves your soul warm and the mind satisfied.
The Cruelest Month clocks in about 50 minutes and it’s composed by six untitled tracks, but I like to look at the album as one long song with several nuances. The tracks bleed into each other and together, in this gentle flotation through sublime and subconscious, the music allows the listener to sail through the waves of the sky and the sea. All the songs on this release proceed in an ever-changing yet perfectly smooth and continuous manner.
The first three tracks have a dreaming, spacey atmosphere. Soft drum beats give rhythm to the glittered texture and the spacey guitar sound. The percussion at the beginning of the fourth song marks a change in the sound that’s now more acoustic and definitely more intense. There’s no trace anymore of the krautrocky sound you easily recognize in the first three songs.
The last fifteen minutes of The Cruelest Month follow the same path of the fourth track with a rhythmic structure and I particularly like the motive of the last song. With its subtle samples, percussion and guitar loops the closing song is a cinematic soundtrack where each note is suspended in a space dense of sound.
There’s no doubt that the best tag for this music is experimental. The trio bring the listeners into a dreamy and enjoyable journey through time and space. I recommend you dive into this voyage on your own, and see where each dreamscape will take you…
