Bleep

This record, the first collaboration between Nadja & B/B/S member Aidan Baker and the bass clarinetist Gareth Davis, contains four long-form tracks of ambient drone. Baker trundles in on opener ‘Memory’ with a wash of noise that could have been lifted from a film score - specifically a scene entitled ‘First Sighting of the Enemy’. It’s a glacial wash of low hum and a needling high note reminiscent of a sonar beep. Eventually Davis appears, his soft clarinet cautiously raising its head above the surface. It’s not a million miles away from the work of Davis’s former collaborator Scanner. The trick is repeated on following track ‘Sky’, and the effect is similarly mesmerising. Baker and Davis skirt into chamber jazz on ‘Signs’ before closing out with the thousand-yard-stare of ‘Desire’. Invisible Cities is an evocative and masterfully weighted LP.