Aidan Baker - The Spectrum Of Distraction

Specifically designed to be played on shuffle and yield a completely unique experience each time, AIDAN BAKER’s audacious monsterpiece, The Spectrum of Distraction, takes a nod from Zappa’s technique of ’xenochrony’ and runs it though the digital age via the shuffle aspect of CD and MP3 players. 96(!) tracks spanning two discs create an incredibly varied landscape through each listen, with pieces ranging from just a few seconds to over seven minutes, there is no shortage of diversity here. Hallucinatory dreamscapes weave into frantic noise into dubby passages into chilled out jazz into psychedelic grooves into an oppressive industrial crunch into a hip hop bop into almighty sludge dirges and almost everything else the kitchen sink offers can all be found somewhere within this bold beast of a project. Start to finish / through and through, nowhere else is it possible to experience anything quite like AIDAN BAKER’s truly enthralling creation, The Spectrum of Distraction.

Well known for being a core part of prolific heavyweights NADJA, AIDAN BAKER is backed here by an impressive array of notable drummers who’ve cut their teeth in SWANS, THE JESUS LIZARD, SLOWDIVE, KILLING JOKE, GODFLESH, JESU and many more. All shimmering through an unlikely pairing of narcotic neuroses and the Choose Your Own Adventure series, the loftiness of this concept album is thankfully only matched by the project’s vast content. Founded in the late 2009 when AIDAN BAKER began soliciting drum tracks and loops, he ending up with roughly six hours of material from 18 different percussionists. Alternately in Toronto and Berlin throughout the winter of 2010, he then recorded guitar and bass to go along with these drum tracks and from that initial six hours edited the mass of content down to the 96 slices (spanning two hours) that appear on this pair of discs. The edits allow for the album to be played on shuffle so that each listen is different and it is then that The Spectrum of Distraction comes into full light and glory. Take from it.

Expanded full-sets of the individual sessions are simultaneously available within a free digital download card included in the entire pressing.