Yn Gyntaf

Welsh for “firstly,” the initial entry in the series features Oneida drummer John Colpitts (aka Man Forever) and vocalist Stacy Taylor (aka Sarff). It’s also the only one where the drummer of the trio wasn’t the one present for the initial recording. Colpitts is a powerhouse and Taylor’s wordless singing packs its own punch, but for the first five of the seven tracks here, the trio keeps things spectral and foreboding. It’s only when Baker’s guitar splits open the beginning of “Chweched” with two tracks to go that all that potential energy is converted into roiling catharsis (admittedly those two tracks do cover a solid half hour between them). Both halves work well on their own, but the collision of the two is the strongest part of Yn Gyntaf, suggesting the series’ reluctance to settle into one predictable mode even on a trio-by-trio basis.

Siguiente

The second instalment brings in My Disco drummer Rohan Rebeiro and baritone saxophonist Sofía Salvo. All three play this hour loose, spacey and abstract, with all instruments frequently making sounds pretty far away from their standard expressions. Whether it’s the sparse, alien, clicking and droning soundscape of “Primeras (Pts I y II),” the prowling baritone sax haunting “Cuarto,” or the slowly accruing damage of the closing “Septimo,” it is immediately clear that each group is going to bring very different sensibilities and possibilities to the work.

Trzecia

Baker frequently works in various genres in and adjacent to heavy metal, and fans of that side of his work might have their ears perk up seeing that Trzecia brings in Khanate/Insect Ark drummer Tim Wyskida and Pinkish Black’s Daron Beck on keyboards. “Pierwsza” isn’t very brutal at all though, starting with Wyskida’s skittering taps, Beck adding graceful piano accents, and Baker mostly staying subliminal/droning. It’s the closest the series comes to sounding like, say, the Necks. Most of the hour stays in this kind of exploratory mood, with Wyskida frequently leading the way. Only on the closing sixteen minutes of “Szósta” does the hammer come down, Baker and Beck grinding in tandem while Wyskida propels them.

Yonbanme

The fourth entry also includes the series’ second singer in the form of Ayami Suzuki (who also provides electronics), as well as journeyman drummer Tobias Humble. Whereas on Yn Gyntaf Stacy Taylor’s voice was central, giving an element for the listener to follow through the hour, here Suzuki often hangs back, with her voice almost merging with the wash of sound on the ethereal “Nibanme” for example. But then on the more heavily layered title track she also provides the closest thing the series has to discernible lyrics (good luck transcribing them though). The instalment with the fewest tracks (five) and so the longest average track times, Yonbanme may be the only trio to (almost) replicate the instrumental setup of a previous one, but that only highlights how distinctly each collaborator adds to the proceedings.

Letzte

The title here is “last” (not “fifth”) in German, and for the closing trio Baker brings in Berlin’s Jana Sotzko (Point No Point, others) on drums and Melissa Guion (aka MJ Guider) on guitar/bass/electronics. As you might expect from the rest of the series, that setup does not mean we are about to get anything at all like a conventional power trio. Guion frequently laces Baker and Sotzko’s in-the-room interplay with drifting atmospherics, from the gradual haze of “Erste” to the cavernous echoes of “Fünfte.” The closing title track sends the whole project off with a fuzzy, surging valediction, a fittingly satisfying end for a project that demonstrated significant sonic and emotional range within the various modulations of a deliberately specific format. Maybe Trio Not Trio could have five-not-five entries someday?

Aidan Baker — The Evelyn Tables

Named after the earliest known “anatomical preparations” in Europe, the track titles here are things like “CNS” and “Distribution of Veins“ and the sound (based entirely I believe around guitar, both electric and acoustic) is “textural ambient drone.” Very gentle and soothing, kind of crepuscular, potentially more background-y than even his other ambient stuff but in a very successful way. Has he done soundtracks? Someone should get him to do soundtracks.

Aidan Baker — Tenebrist

A solo power trio record, instrumental again but a lot more riff-based and fuzzy. Still textural (and FWIW, still excellent working music in my opinion), but maybe textural sludge instead of ambient. Heavy in a very basic, direct way and I mean that as a compliment.

Baker Ja Lehtisalo — Crocodile Tears

This is an interesting one; Lehtisalo is the main guy from Circle, a pretty interesting Finnish metal/experimental band who’ve been around for a while an done a lot. I’m not super familiar, but if you haven’t heard the record they did a few years ago with Richard Dawson, you should. He and Baker both play a bit of everything here, with Lehtisalo’s keyboards and vocals being the most audibly distinct new bits. These are palpably songs but long, dense, repetitive ones; the 14.5 minutes of the opening “(And I Want Your Perfect) Crocodile Tears“ (longest song on the record!) should tell you whether you’re on its wavelength.

Nadja — Labyrinthine

I didn’t save the two records from arguably Baker’s “main” gig with partner Leah Buckareff for the end; we’re doing alphabetical order, as always. But I did include a video for (half of) one of the tracks from this record at the beginning of this post because it’s my favourite, and honestly one of my favourite records of the year, full stop. It’s also, along with the Hatchie, the one I’m the most sad and frustrated that I couldn’t pull together a review of. At least in this case it’s partly because I reviewed another (excellent) Nadja LP in 2022. The fact that the two “main” Nadja LPs in 2022 included distinctly novel elements for the duo (four guest vocalists here, a drummer on Nalepa) is not, I think, an indication that the core concept of the band is lagging or running out of steam. I mean, I thought Luminous Rot kicked ass too! But it’s definitely exciting to see what four very different vocalists brought to Nadja’s music here, and how the duo changed things up to match each singer. The biggest praise I can give: I would listen to full LPs by all four of these distinct “bands.”

Nadja — Nalepa