Aidan Baker - One Guitar, a Thousand Faces

Aidan Baker is something of a loose cannon. In almost ten years of relentless activity, the Canadian artist has managed to release a body of work that comes close to three figures in total. It's also impossible to try to confine his output to any single sonic territory: starting out from an original intersection of metallic psychedelia and drone-noise, he has offered up such a variety of facets of his sound world as to make it one of the broadest and most influential of recent years. His career represents a path in which atmospheric music and organic experimentation intertwine in an inseparable bond, with the two worlds constantly cross-pollinating each other. We caught up with him to talk about the genesis and purpose of the recent Lp reissue of one of his most important works, the little psych-ambient gem "The Sea Swells A Bit…", the most significant event in a year that has seen him release the "usual" handful of albums (chief among them "In The Red Room" with Idklang, "The Confessonal Tapes" and the monolithic "Half Lives") and which, until proven otherwise, could still hold a few surprises in store.

One of the things I find most interesting when talking about you is the incredible variety of styles you work in. It's so broad that almost everything released under your name ends up hiding some element of surprise. Do you let creativity surprise you too?

Often I actually start out with a fairly specific idea of what I want to do with a given project, but just as often I find myself discovering something surprising while the work is in progress... In that sense, what happens during the creative process matters just as much as the initial idea.

Speaking in more rational terms, how do you approach making music?

That depends entirely on the initial idea and the nature of the specific project. Some compositions are more structured and rigid, others are entirely improvised in a free form, and others still are a combination of both.

How much does your background "weigh" on the way you approach composing?

I have a relatively varied background, ranging from classical, formal training to entirely self-taught improvisation. I do think it's very important to the way I work, even though it's not an integral part of it as such, but rather influences me on a subliminal level, in the sense that I certainly can't say I think about it while I'm playing...

How did the idea come about to remaster "The Sea Swells A Bit…" and why did you choose to release it only on Lp?

I've known for a long time that it's one of the records fans love most, and lots of people, especially recently with the vinyl "resurrection", have been asking me whether there would ever be an Lp reissue. But it wasn't until I got in touch with Ici d'Ailleurs that I found anyone willing to take on a project like this. A Silent Place, who originally released the record, pressed it twice on CD, so it didn't seem necessary to me to reissue it in that format as well.

On that record you approached a form of electronic psychedelia that in some ways is quite far from the drone-noise experiments that defined those years for you... Did you experience that album as an escape from the sound you were mainly devoted to at the time?

No, actually, not really. It was simply something different, in sound and style, that I strongly wanted to explore at that time. Although it was a bit removed from what I was doing at the time, that kind of exploration was, and still is, an integral part of my soundworld.

What did it represent for you on a personal and artistic level?

To be honest, I was quite surprised by how successful that record turned out to be. It's not that I disown it, but I find it decidedly simplistic, even compared to other things I did before and after. Looking back, I have the impression that I just ended up rereading post-rock conventions in an ambient context. Maybe that's what made the record a more accessible experimental music statement than usual… I don't know, in my mind it holds more than one meaning.

In recent years you seem to have devoted yourself much more to the areas of your work closer to drone-noise, with albums like “Aneira” and “Already Drowning“, the latter a particular and in some ways unprecedented detour…

The closeness to song form on “Already Drowning” isn't actually all that new — it's something I'd already experimented with on other records in the past. With that album I once again tried to redefine, in my own personal way, everything I had left behind on the paths of more minimalist post-rock or slowcore.

There's perhaps one single true common denominator running through all your work, namely the guitar. Do you consider it your main means of expression?

Yes, without a doubt. Although there are a few records where I didn't use it, or used it very little, like “Book Of Nods” or “Still Life”, where keyboards and piano are definitely the main protagonists.

Although your soundscape is fairly complex, you've always been very open to artistic dialogue and collaborations, often even with artists quite far removed from you in approach and sound… How do you view the very idea of collaborating?

Collaborating can be something very rewarding — it's not always easy or immediate, but the best moments are exactly when the process of collaborating leads to something unexpected, which can in turn lead toward new and different places.

Some of your collaborations have become established enough to turn into full-fledged side projects. I'm thinking, for instance, of Nadja, which today is one of the faces of your artistic output…

Actually, Nadja isn't the best example in this sense, because it started as a solo project and later opened up to my current partner, Leah, who initially joined with the aim of letting me play the material live. B/B/S/, the trio project with Andrea Belfi (Hobocombo) and Erik Skodvin (Deaf Center) is definitely more representative, being a group that came together spontaneously, meeting up and playing together to see what might come out of it…

So what does Nadja represent for you today, then? 

I originally started this project to devote myself entirely to certain particular sounds I had already explored under my own name — still ambient and drone in nature, but heavier and denser, touching on noise and industrial or certain metal sounds. Nadja today is still that side of my output, but I feel much freer when working under my own name, because over time the project has taken on its own particular character that's now hard to shift.

Speaking of Nadja, I was quite shocked by the collaboration with Uochi Toki. Personally, I have a lot of trouble considering what they do even remotely credible as a musical form, but the pairing worked better than one might have expected. How did your paths cross?

We met through oVo, whom they had collaborated with before. And sure, they make music that's radically different and far removed from ours, but I think we found important common ground in the bass and the noise. Our collaboration with them was very instinctive in nature — we recorded the record by playing spontaneously and capturing whatever came out.

You're one of the most prolific artists we can think of, averaging as many as 5-6 albums a year. How do you manage to bring such a high number of projects to completion?

I always have tracks in the works inside my mind that are asking to be performed and recorded... A lot of what I do is improvised in nature, so it's easy to produce a lot of material. Separating what's worthwhile from what isn't is perhaps the hardest challenge, definitely more difficult and time-consuming than the recording and production process itself.

To wrap up on a lighter note, I'll throw you a challenge: what's your favorite Aidan Baker album?

Um... I don't know. If I had to name a few off the top of my head, I'd say "Already Drowning", "Green & Cold", "The Spectrum Of Distraction" and, of course, "The Sea Swells A Bit...".

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