Asger's 3rd solo album released in 2022.
“If the music stops, they’ll eat him up” invokes through its nine tracks a sense of mysterious and highly visual storytelling. As is expected of a composer who has worked with cinema extensively, the music unfolds much like a motion picture, conjuring images that are rich and textured. It’s as if Baden was painting a wide and vast musical room where the listener is invited to explore its every nook and cranny, from soft percussive footsteps in the background, to the whispering rumbles of synthesizers just in front or the frail conversation of strings happening to the side. There’s an over- whelming sense of openness and atmosphere to every sound, with a churchy echo delineating the space that surrounds them. “I want to put myself in a position where my ‘ears are wide open’ to the quirks, random incidents and happy accidents
rather than being totally focused on the composition in a conventional sense,” says Baden, “to me, this opens a door to a much larger canvas, so to speak.”
There’s an intentional vagueness to Baden’s compositions that resembles films with open-ends. ‘Crooked Spoke’, a journey which unfolds non- linearly through the clarinet, piano and strings captures this enigmatic feeling, each instrument tells a part of the same story, slightly borrowing from jazz the idea of an ongoing yet inconclusive dialogue. “I record hours upon hours of improvised material with myself and other musicians, to then harvest bits and pieces from these vast fields of sound,” explains Baden of his creative process which relies on meticulous post-production. Despite the undeniable attention to detail in the piece – the distinct reverberation of every note and the palpable crackle of the clarinet – the music’s full picture is never truly revealed, its overall intent remains shrouded in mystery and allure.
