New music and Aidan Baker are about as common as nipping to the corner a shop to fetch a loaf of bread and a pint of milk.
Since the COVID pandemic, the Berlin-based Canadian experimentalist has been in the creative form of his life, channeling a plethora of ideas through just as many projects away from his primary vocation alongside Leah Buckareff as Nadja; those have included Baker Ja Lehtisalo, Hypnodrone Ensemble, Trio Not Trio, and many more.
The latest works from Baker sees him behind the drumkit, and joined by Bournemouth multi-instrumentalist, Jack Chuter, and the little known Internet shy gadget wrangler, Ryan Durfee, the trio release Laika World.
Following Januar, Baker’s wonderful Necks-inspired collaboration alongside pianist, Stefan Christoff, Laika World is every bit its equal. A tribute to the Soviet space dog, Laika, who became the first animal to orbit earth aboard Sputnik 2 in 1957, Laika World is a sound bath of soft reverb and multi-faceted ambience.
From the first note of opening movement, Cracked Ceramic On Beltane, the trio teleports you somewhere beyond the borders. With searching ambient drone cleansing the mind, filmic static crackles through the main lines in what sounds like a dispatch from a lonely orbit.
Longest track on the album, Sorrow Is A Sage, lurches with Chuter’s soft, undulating drone and reverb, and alongside Baker’s manic, fractured percussion and Durfree’s stirring synths, the trio combine for the soundtrack to your dreams.
Then there’s the keys-led Night Capsule Demand. A sequence of scrambled soundscapes, Baker’s jazz-inspired percussion folds back on itself, and with Durfree’s field recordings dotted underneath the mix, it’s another rolling mist of sound that magically appears from another planet.
The same could be said of the wonderfully titled Where Will the Terriers Retire To When Florida Has Sunk Into the Sea. A ghostly echo of minimalism, here the trio cultivate something with the hypnotic intensity of The Caretaker.
It’s a fitting end to Laika World. At times, something that feels like a lost tape to the underrated 2024 Trio Not Trio series, which saw Baker collaborate with artists all across the world over five albums. There’s a lot to be said of how he manages to keep reinventing himself, but via the main road that leads to collaboration, time and time again, he always produces something forward-thinking and worthy of anyone’s time. And with Chuter and Durfree giving equally exceptional performances, Laika’s World is something that constantly moves forward.
Laika’s World is out now via Cruel Nature Records / peradim tapes. Purchase from Bandcamp.
