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Nadja / Aidan Baker / related - catch all thread


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6 hours ago, armadillo01 said:

So glad I fought my self-imposed hesitation over these. Fair warning: The generic white paper record sleeves and the heavy cardstock of the gatefold do not make for a happy marriage. I'm thinking of swapping the record sleeves for those 70's style thin-ass treated paper ones (with the  clear-plastic see-through in the centre).

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P.S. They were EXPERTLY packaged with cardboard reinforcement on all sides, also bubblewrap (who  the hell DOES THAT anymore?! :wub:) but also they taped the outer plastic sleeve in the middle! Like :o

Yeah, they were packed as if they were expecting gorillas to handle them.

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Appreciate the heads up on packaging. I can usually re-use mailers - even the thin overseas ones for 10" but the way the records were taped in there, I didn't waste time doing surgery, but simply extricated the vinyl and trashed (recycled) the mailer. I don't mind bubble wrap - anything to help mitigate damage. 

Hopefully will clean and spin these this afternoon, since my wife is not a Nadja fan (understatement of the year lol) but is out with the girlfriends :)

 

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  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...

 I just got the LP today and had the download on bandcamp (still private).

Spoiler

To my ears, the 30 min first track has many of their old elements: their version of shoegazey vocals, slow build to full wall at about 8 minutes in, and the drone which harkens me back to earliest releases. Thankfully, they skip the shrill// fingernail-on-chalkboard feeback or whatever. Everything's humming along until 18  minutes, then back to quiet. Instead of a 2 minute outro, it goes on for 10 more minutes of filler (imo).

I really like the next two "grindgaze" with driving guitar. The Draino man or Cookie Monster vocals are not my favorite, but don't detract.

Overall, I'm glad I got the vinyl, but it will definitely be one to play when I'm home alone - like most of the other albums anyways :)

 

 

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23 minutes ago, drds89 said:

 I just got the LP today and had the download on bandcamp (still private).

  Reveal hidden contents

To my ears, the 30 min first track has many of their old elements: their version of shoegazey vocals, slow build to full wall at about 8 minutes in, and the drone which harkens me back to earliest releases. Thankfully, they skip the shrill// fingernail-on-chalkboard feeback or whatever. Everything's humming along until 18  minutes, then back to quiet. Instead of a 2 minute outro, it goes on for 10 more minutes of filler (imo).

I really like the next two "grindgaze" with driving guitar. The Draino man or Cookie Monster vocals are not my favorite, but don't detract.

Overall, I'm glad I got the vinyl, but it will definitely be one to play when I'm home alone - like most of the other albums anyways :)

 

 

Damn, super jealous... Can't wait for mine to get here.

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On 7/24/2018 at 9:14 PM, GHOSTDRONES said:

Damn, super jealous... Can't wait for mine to get here.

Vinyl sounds GREAT, especially the lows, I almost had to turn my loudness button off

And they did an almost perfect edit for the album to be an LP ; side a 33 RPM and I didn't clock it, but think about 20 min vs 30 min track on digital; and side B is 45 RPM with just the two grindgaze tracks that pump. Cut out 10 min of filler side a and the last 2 tracks on side b

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  • 1 month later...
13 hours ago, drds89 said:

Thanks for posting!  Were only 3 left when I saw it, cutting it very close, haha.  I'm glad he's doing more tapes, especially for his solo work.

 

Anyone get Sonnborner in yet?  Still waiting on mine and getting a bit eager

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7 hours ago, jonrawks said:

Thanks for posting!  Were only 3 left when I saw it, cutting it very close, haha.  I'm glad he's doing more tapes, especially for his solo work.

 

Anyone get Sonnborner in yet?  Still waiting on mine and getting a bit eager

Portraits sounds like something Eno would have done 20+ years ago - really digging it

Sonnborner arrived late July and I posted on IG - tagged you this afternoon

Great pressing (lows are really good), overall I couldn't think of a better edit - it is one of the 45RPM /33RPM though.

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2 hours ago, drds89 said:

Portraits sounds like something Eno would have done 20+ years ago - really digging it

Sonnborner arrived late July and I posted on IG - tagged you this afternoon

Great pressing (lows are really good), overall I couldn't think of a better edit - it is one of the 45RPM /33RPM though.

Hmm, I'll have to reach out then.  For some reason I thought they were shipping early this month.  Thanks for the info!

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  • 2 years later...
12 hours ago, bjorn said:

New Nadja album coming out on Southern Lord. The single absolutely crushes:

https://nadja.bandcamp.com/album/luminous-rot

 

Agreed! Can't wait for the vinyl - I believe Aidan said August on his and their IG

Passed on the Disrotted split, maybe need a few more listens....

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This band has been on a really fascinating creative tragectory. Sonnborner was inspiring and refreshing and really should have received more attention. Not to mention that they nonchalantly put out two of the best straightforward(ish) shoegaze albums I've heard in the last decade (Queller and Dagdrom). I love the apparent pivot to more of an industrial groove on this new one, pretty exciting.

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10 hours ago, drds89 said:

Passed on the Disrotted split, maybe need a few more listens....

I struggle with splits. I like the artwork though

6 hours ago, bjorn said:

 I love the apparent pivot to more of an industrial groove on this new one, pretty exciting.

More of the sound and tones of Tangled (and Sv... (ish).
Vocals are more pronounced than usual .

 

Queller and Dagdrom are great.  I need to spend more time with Sonnborner though

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Queller and Dagdrom are always in rotation, forgive if I've said it before, Queller is a great entry point and imo most accessible to anyone not familiar with drone. Those riffs just stick with you. Sonnborner is definitely worth more listens @Mars

Their splits with Vampillia - The Perfect World and Imperfection clicked with me, whereas some others did not.

The Bungled And The Botched was the one that got me hooked. My sealed copy from Amoeba records had a jarring, loud pop for at least 15 revs right before the wall hits, so I had to replace it  -- with a white label copy.

It took me a solid month or more to go from start to finish one time through their back cat many years ago now, including solo and side projects. Prolific doesn't even begin to describe AB, but I have to say I'm glad he has slowed down a little bit and done some cassette releases. 2xLP for drone is a bummer having to get up and flip 3 times, so drone weekends are when I'm already in the listening room doing paperwork or sometning.

I need to do it again for the albums I passed on. Running out of room for vinyl and time to spin everything.

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Sonnborner is what got me down the rabbit hole. It's such an unusual structure for an album, and on paper it probably shouldn't work, but when I first heard it it felt like such a breath of fresh air.  Up until then my only exposure was through a couple of their older splits (Kodiak and ASOL), which really weren't a great representation of what I was missing. I've listened to almost every Nadja release in the last three months and a good chuck of AB solo and side projects and added a bunch of it to my collection by placing a sizable order with Aidan. I ended up getting CD's for a lot of it and in some instances that's the better format (Thaumogenesis in particular), but the extra 20 minute hidden track on Tangled is really cool as well. At this point I think Autopergamene is the quintessential album from their early years, and that one works brilliantly on vinyl. I also don't click with splits very easily, but their collab with Pyramids is pretty amazing.

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I collaborations are different than splits though, and if memory serves, both Vampillia as well as Pyramids were collaborations - which worked well for sure. the one with Uochi Toki, on the other hand, didn't work with me.
 

The Bungled & the Botched is definitely one of my favs., as is Under the Jaguar Sun. The experimentation of  the separate tracks designed to be combined was neat, but the band's mix is where it is at: https://brokenspineprods.bandcamp.com/album/under-the-jaguar-sun-chalchiuhtlicue-rain-pwyc. My first exposure to Nadja was Skin Turns to Glass, which is going wayyyy back.

Agreed - 2xlp is totally a bummer for the longer tracks, takes me out of the song.  

I will spend some more time with sonnborner, it is overdue.

Edited by Mars
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That's true, collaborations and splits are definitely separate categories, but sometimes it's hard to differentiate at first glance. 

I don't mind 2xLP's as long as it makes sense for the material to be divided into fourths (or thirds in rare cases). I get more annoyed with releases where there's clearly no consideration for those restrictions. If an album is just a few minutes too long for a single disc, then gets spread over four sides, in those cases I wish more artists would just adjust the content to fit the format. I think it's totally cool if a CD version of an album differs from the vinyl version, and Nadja seem to embrace that idea.

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On 3/15/2021 at 1:46 PM, bjorn said:

I think it's totally cool if a CD version of an album differs from the vinyl version, and Nadja seem to embrace that idea.

💯so long as the vinyl version doesn't subtracts songs. Go for that 3-sided 2xLP rather than thinking editing songs out to make it a 1xLP is doing us a solid, just because the value proposition of a lower price-point is better.

And depending on the artist/band, you sometimes wonder why they can't just come up with a 10-plus minute jam piece to fill out that fourth side (or be Neko Case and do a sound-collage of frog choruses for those bog/swamp vibes).

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