THE CONFESSIONAL TAPES

Aidan Baker's 2015 release "The Confessional Tapes" turns out to be both an unexpected "small wonder" and an extraordinary display of Mr. Baker's best attributes both as performer and as songwriter, compressed into ten all perfectly matched songs, which travel trough, I'm quoting Bandcamp's taggins: Ambient, Drone, Electronica, Experimental Jazz, Post-Rock, Shoegaze, Slowcore and Triphop. I, of course, will bring it closer to the Prog-World by adding Prog/Electronics , Prog´s Post/Math rock and some slight brushes with the Canterbury Scene and the Prog/Folk one.

Yes! This project leans on all kind of directions, it is as sophisticated as it is raw. Mr.Baker himself sings on some of its pieces yet every composition focuses or develops towards unexpected highlights of pure musical beauty, no matter how roughly constructed or performed or which kind of scratch (or glitch) it uses.

Ok but what makes it tick so loud? For starters, composition wise, it is flawless as it is unique. Why? Due to the fact that all those "taggins" or styles actually happen simultaneously in small fragments in each song and are transfigured into Mr. Baker´s self aquired musical ways of expression in the same proportion. And each song, although apparently uncrafted or rough, is meticulous constructed or deconstructed by these blending of crossroads with enough space to dwell freely knowing beforehand, that as in life itself, music coexists among noise and silence.

*****5 PA stars.