Rolling drones and a steady march of grainy percussion lead us slowly into Aidan Baker’s Deer Park. There is something deliberate and inevitable about this initiation and indeed the breadth of the album feels like a soundtrack to a solemn, ancient ceremony – with not-necessarily human participants. Here in Japan, deer are messengers of the gods and it is perhaps these messages that are being expressed in their raw and untranslated form.
Using a minimum of sound and a maximum of craft, Aidan Baker has created a masterful work of patience and procedure . Regardless of whether we were the intended listeners, or whether it was meant for other ears, Deer Park calls out to us: steady, pulsing, and eternal.