Description:	Ltd CD on Install, 500 copies in eco-wallet
	Format:	CD
	Genre(s):	Drone / Kosmische
	Label:	Install
	Price:	£10.29
	Availability:	Dispatched within 2-5 days (on average).

5
...according to our Ant on 17 September 2009.

Is MTV unplugged still going? I haven’t watched MTV in about 15 years... Anyway Aidan Baker has a CD out on Install called ‘Dry’ and the name is a clue to what’s happening on the recording. Basically the man is playing his electric guitar ‘“Dry” i.e zero effects. Okay so his guitar is plugged in but this is kinda like his Unplugged session. What a session it is too as his sound is stripped right back to its basic elements. What this really reveals is his genius guitar playing which can sometimes get a little lost amongst all the effects. Mr. Baker really gets some emotions swirling through the strings and I begin to realize just how nimble his fingers are as he improvises but never noodles, the mood feels free yet controlled by his vision/ emotions. I really dig the spacious sometimes minimal feel. At a couple of points I was reminded of Oren Ambarchi’s classic ambient guitar record ‘Grapes From The Estate’ I’ve yet to hear a release on this label that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed (That Peter Wright 2CD is still doing it for me). I’m inclined to agree with the label here when they say “If you only hear one Baker release in 2009, make it this one”. High quality stuff, limited to 500 copies in eco-wallet.

Love this record? Hate it? Tell us.

Sound clips for Dry by Aidan Baker: on CD at Norman Records UK. CD, Install, INST007, £10.29.

What their label says...

Just in time for the end of summer, we’ve got the perfect record to play while you watch the leaves turn colors and die: DRY. Veteran experimental guitarist Aidan Baker’s stellar contribution to Install couldn’t get any more straightforward. As the title would indicate, this is raw, live Baker we’re hearing, stripped down to the barest of components, no effects, no overdubs, warts and all. We’ve been following Baker’s output for years and we have to admit that we’ve never heard the man sound quite like this before. Unlike anything else we can think of, Dry is a contemplative experience that is as much physical as it is immaterial. Baker’s evocative playing style has never quite been this bare, and Dry proves that beneath all of the drenching reverbs and delays on his prior works, there is an incredible improvisational force at work. Sonically it mines monochrome landscapes of unpainted canvas, weaving in and out of melodic motifs, as if it were recorded in a dream state, while compositionally it lies somewhere between Jandek and Satwa, being both dissonant and meditative. Confessing and immersive, this is a record we cannot praise enough, and since there probably isn’t much that hasn’t already been said about Aidan Baker by now, we’ll get to the point: If you only hear one Baker release in 2009, make it this one – we’re certain you won’t regret it!


1. Strum & Stress
2. Oval/Oral
3. The Sea Swells & Crackles Like A Honeybee
4. Explosions
5. Pale/Pole
6. I Am A Free Machine
7. The Irrelevance of Mosquito Dreams
8. Pulse/Plus
9. Slide
 
Limited to 500 FUll-color ECO-Wallet.