Настроение:	tired
Музыка:	Isis - [Panopticon #02] Backlit

Tiny flags for everyone! - Aidan Baker interviewed
Чтобы не потерялось, интервью с Эйденом Бейкером (Nadja, Aidan Baker, Arc) -

Lem: Hey! This time I've got plenty of questions to you, so let's start!
First of all, thanx for the interview, that's pretty cool for a Nadja fan to feel this connection with you, Aidan!

How was your last show at The Electric Eclectics Festival? In general, do you feel the growing interest to Nadja and your solo work this time around?

Aidan Baker: It was a good show -- beautiful outdoor setting in northern Ontario. There does seem to be a increased interest, which is gratifying.

L.: How're things going with the extended Eurotour in fall?

A.B.: We are currently in the process of setting up a European tour. We will be doing a few weeks with our friends Picastro in France, Switzerland, and Germany, a week with Atavist in England, and a week or so in Portugal and Spain. Hopefully we'll have a chance to do Scandanavia and Eastern Europe as well, but that might not be till the new year. More details to come.

L.: Do you plan on coming to the American West Coast this year?

A.B.: We are doing a few US West Coast dates the first week of October. Again, more details to come.

L.: A few more questions concerning gigs. How do you create a set-list for a show, do you have any structured plan or do you just combine album tracks with impro sections?

A.B.: We usually have a loosely structured plan, yes, but that structure includes songs that have improvised sections in them.

L.: Do you rehearse before live shows and in general how do you prepare the set-up etc.?

A.B.: Yes, we rehearse. We usually just run through the set-list and any other possible songs we might play...

L.: You included real drums in "Desire in uneasiness", could you imagine working with that again, or even include them in liveshows?

A.B.: We have not yet included live drums in a performance, but it's always a possibility. We'll probably do another album with live drums, yes, though whether it will be with Jakob or not, I don't know.

L.: Now, about the releases. Are any of your old out of print solo albums going to see a new release in any form?

A.B.: Yes. Basses Frequences in France has just re-issued "I fall into you" and will be doing a vinyl release of "Letters". Also, Important Records is releasing a 2xCD compilation of various out of print tracks. Beta-Lactam is re-issuing a couple of my older solo albums as well.

L.: Is the release on Essence music ('Autopergamene') going to have one of those awesome looking box set limited editions? Any possibilities to get one?

A.B.: Yes. I'm not sure of exactly everything that will be included yet, but there will be a bonus disc of a live version of "Touched" and another with a 5.1 mix of "Autopergamene".

L.: Are there already any plans for vinyl editions of the 2008 full-length releases (bliss, skin turns to glass, desire, bungled & botched)? What's up with the 'Thaumogenesis' LP? Is it ever gonna happen?

A.B.: "Skin Turns to Glass" will see a vinyl release with The End, but I don't think any of the others will -- at least no plans at yet. I have absolutely no idea what's happening with the Thaumogenesis vinyl...you will all have to bug Level Plane about that.

L.: With 'Absorbed in you', all the old pre-duo Nadja tracks have been re-recorded, do you feel this is sort of closing a chapter of Nadja?

A.B.: Yes!

L.: Here's a couple of questions about your collaboration work. What leads you to consider collaborating with another band or artist?

A.B.: If we think it will have interesting results, that's usually enough...

L.: How do you do collaborations? Do you just trade tapes, or do you guys get in a studio and jam?

A.B.: For the most part it's tape trading, but we have done some stuff in studio with people.

L.: We've had a discussion about the bands Nadja should collaborate with on our group's forum. Among our wishes (for the most part unrealistic) there were The Angelic Process, Current 93, Marzuraan, Kayo Dot or even Godspeed you! Black Emperor, Drudkh (atmospheric black metal) or some random death metal band :) Is there any band/artist you personally dream about the collaboration with?

A.B.: I've tried to get both James Plotkin and Justin Broadrick to do some collaborative stuff, but so far nothing has come of that...not that either have given me a definite no, but not sure if anything will ever happen with them. It would be cool to work with Caspar Brotzmann. And I think it would be interesting to do some stuff with OM or Boris or The Goslings. And maybe something with more pop artists like Stina Nordenstam or PJ Harvey.

L.: Here are the questions about everything... What do you think of the death of K.Angylus of 'The Angelic Process'?

A.B.: I think it is very sad, especially for Monica. I know a hand-injury would be very distressing for me as well -- I don't know how I would handle it, but I can certainly empathize with Kris' situation...

L.: Ever noticed that most of the bigger shoegaze/drone/doom groups (TAP/Goslings/Nadja) are husband/wife teams? Care to give any suggestion as to why this is?

A.B.: That is curious...maybe only our partners can put up with us?

L.: In your opinion, what surroundings fit Nadja's music most? I mean where (in what ambience) should one listen to your music to get the full effect of it?

A.B.: That's too subjective a question to answer, I think, since everyone listens to music in different ways. Of course, it would be nice if people listened attentatively to our music and not just as background music...

L.: What does your writing/recording process involve?

A.B.: We usually write and record a basic or skeletal structure for a song and then flesh it out with improvisations. When we work on an album, we try to have some sort of over-arching or uniting theme, either lyrically or sonically, to give the album some cohesion.

L.: Do you consider your music 'Canadian'? When I first heard 'Radiance…' I felt as I was somewhere in the middle of the northern forest covered with ice and snow and then I thought that your music should have been inspired by your surroundings. Does the environment influence it somehow and do you associate your art with the cultural process in your country?

A.B.: Not really, no. We live in Toronto which is a pretty big city, so I can't really say nature influences our sound especially. And while (debatably) there might be a typical 'Canadian' sound, it's pretty vague and difficult to pin down...but we certainly don't have that sound anyway.

L.: Nadja is obviously an avant-garde music project, well if one can call anything 'avant-garde' today, when everything seems to be already discovered =) Anyway, you play the experimental and very modern, 'up-to-date' music, and at this aspect you definitely are the avant-garde musicians. So could you give any forecasts as to the musical development in the nearest future? I'm talking not about popular trash (it's always almost the same), but about the serious music.

A.B.: That's difficult to answer...I suppose we'll see more and more mixing of styles and genres, which is basically what we're doing, but who knows how far that will go. Certainly pop music seems to be getting more and more cyclical, which seemingly can only lead to a dead end...

L.: Where do you think is the boundary between the music and the noise? Or do you consider noise the music too? It's a tricky question taking into account your music style combining melodies and drones.

A.B.: Music is all in the intention -- so if I (or anyone else) intend noise to be music, it is. That doesn't mean it's good, of course, but that's another issue.

L.: What are some of your favorite pieces of literature? In the previous interviews you said that Marie-Claire Blais, Albert Camus, John Barth, Philip K. Dick were your favorite authors while you were studying, and among the more or less recent favs you noted Angela Carter, Alan Warner, David Foster Wallace, Steve Erickson, J.G. Ballard, and Haruki Murakami. Can you name us some books you really like and reread from time to time?

A.B.: Here are a few: Iain Banks' "Complicity" or "The Wasp Factory", TC Boyle's "Water Music", Jonathan Lethem's "Gun With Occasional Music", Richard Brautigan's "In Watermelon Sugar" or "Tokyo Montana Express", William Gibson's "Neuromancer", etc.

L.: Are there any new names in literature you would like to mark out? And what about the classical/modernist literature? Don't you like it at all or is this simply not what you love most?

A.B.: Here are some newer authors I like: Kelly Link, Martin Millar, Shelley Jackson, Sean Stewart, Matthew Sharpe, Lydia Millet. And, yes, I like modernist literature -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, TS Eliot, e.e. cummings, James Joyce, etc. I have read a lot of the classics (I studied Literature in university, after all), but I haven't read too much of them lately...

L.: We already know some of your favorite bands. What's your attitude to the classical and jazz music?

A.B.: I listen to jazz and classical, yes. I consider jazz guitarists like Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot big influences...Also Coltrane, Miles Davis, John Lurie, etc. I have a soft spot for Weather Report, since I listened to that a lot when I was a kid. As for classical, I'm partial to early 20th Century modernists like Stranvinsky, Bartok, and Shostokovich, as well as more contemporary composers like Arvo Part and John Tavener.

L.: One of our group members asked who you consider your 'idols'. Well, it seems to me you're not that kind of person that worships anyone (correct me if I'm wrong). But anyway, is there someone (musician, writer or else) who's had an immense influence on your life as an artist and as a person?

A.B.: I don't know about 'idols' per se, but there are artists who are important to me, both personally and artistically. I've talked about those people before (including some of the previous questions in this interview), so I don't know that I can provide any new names here.

L.: Everyone has his own God (god). Every believing Christian will say that 'God is love', the atheists replace him by nature or science or human reason or else, John Lennon said 'God is a concept by which we measure our pain'. What's your vision of God? I know it's a personal question so you can omit it if you want.

A.B.: I don't have a vision of God or any religious beliefs in particular. Yes, perhaps I have 'faith' in science, but I don't think that's a god-replacement or a belief system in the same way a religion is.

L.: And finally, the last question. You might like it, 'cause you once said it's the one you'd like to be asked: What will you do for the people when you're supreme overlord of Earth?

A.B.: Tiny flags for everyone!

Interviewed by Oles 'Lem' Scherback