Aidan Baker: Songs of Flowers and Skin

Songs of Flowers and Skin is an Aidan Baker experiment far removed from his drone-swirled life in Nadja and re-released by Beta-lactum Ring. Really, the EP is far removed from a lot of his solo soundscape work. At times it’s like the soft rock moments of Between The Buried And Me’s Alaska. Its six tracks delve quietly into dark and echoey romantics like the chamber music of some vampire coot. “Take Me Out of My” rustles around under an airy veil of fuzz while the closer, “Flowerskin”, sounds like goth-y Trent Reznor fare until nearly the 14-minute mark, descending to silence and returning nearly ten minutes later for an outro of strummed guitar and Baker’s folk voice. Too slow at times, the album is agreeable without being pretty.