Aquarius Records write-up on A Picture of a Picture

BAKER, AIDAN & THISQUIETARMY A Picture of A Picture (Killer Pimp)

Long overdue rematch between Mr. Aidan Baker, who is as you probably know also of Nadja, and Thisquietarmy, whose previous collaboration, Orange, cause quite a stir around here. And it still gets a lot of play at home, it's the perfect hazy moonlight drifting off to never never land sort of dreamy drone record. Almost like M83 with everything removed but that glorious soft buzz. Sorry if you missed out that one, it was limited to 200 copies and is long gone, but the good news is, that A Picture Of A Picture sounds like it could be part two. In fact it sounds like it could very well have been culled from the same sessions that produced Orange.

Four long long tracks, each a slow swirling amorphous cloud of gauzy half melodies and thick layered textures, the sound slips from gritty and pixilated, to glistening and soft focus in a heartbeat. These two soundscapers are a fantastic match, it's really impossible to tell who's doing what, and where the work of one ends and the other begins, and it hardly matters, as the two together have created something ethereal and ephemeral, a sun dappled drift, equal parts minimal new age hush, and warm languid dreamdrone shimmer. A few moments find the duo ramping it up, but even then, it's only loud or heavy or intense, relative to the rest of this record, which does in fact spend most of its time hovering, whispering, floating lazing, gradually changing color and shape, it's the musical version of watching clouds drift across a brilliant blue sky, so tranquil and mesmerizing and meditative, even the occasional storm cloud, only serves to infuse the afternoon's siesta with some greys and browns, which perfectly balance the rest of the record's endlessly prismatic palette. So gorgeous. Definitely a new nighttime sonic soporific. Released on Killer Pimp, who also released the Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words cd, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list (psst... it's one of the Records Of The Week!).

http://www.aquariusrecords.org/archives/315.html