Aidan Baker – Half Lives

Multi-instrumentalist Aidan Baker’s double album Half Lives shows the Canadian bridging his ambient and lyrical modes on the electric-guitar leaning Mountains Sweat Clouds and the acoustic As I Walked On Dead Earth. Stemming from a set of extended improvisations, this interconnected collection of meandering experiments will appeal to fans of Baker’s contemporaries Tim Hecker and Ben Frost.

Mountains Sweat Clouds’ tripartite title track sets the underlying mood of Half Lives, all menacing cloud drift with a muscly leitmotif and background organ wheeziness. Lighttrap and Fear Of Open Spaces, meanwhile, tinker with eerie percussion. Between the atmospheric drones Baker’s strongest successes are in his song structures, with Baker showing off his monastic vocal in the plaintive You Are A Creature of Darkness, while haunting ten-minute highlight A Black Crow Flies slowly soars and swoops with post-rock swells and twinkling keys before disintegrating into feedback.

As I Walked On Dead Earth is a folkier affair, its centrepiece Then Came The Storm marked by its mystical New Age flute, lurching distortion and insistent acoustic line, as if marching the listener into a medieval battle. At its most disciplined, Half Lives is a sombre, subtly affecting listen; at its worst, it only half holds the attention.