Nadja

Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff still have more new releases planned for 2009 (including a collaborative album with Pyramids for Hydra Head) but at the same time, they're purging the vaults of some harder to find Nadja records. The Bungled and the Botched was originally released as a CD-R back in 2005 and then re-recorded and given a limited release last year by ConSouling Sounds. Thankfully, it's now receiving a proper release thanks to their fellow Torontonians at Blocks Recording Club. Though only two tracks, Bungled is exactly one-hour in length. The title track finds the duo exploring another side to their music, beginning with a low mix of soft guitars, wind instruments and drums that recalls earlier Mogwai for the first 11 minutes before erupting into a sludgy sea of overdriven fuzz. The song never breaks from its arrangement, spinning hypnotically epic chord refrains that use enough melody to avoid becoming stale after 23 minutes. "Absorbed in You," on the other hand, is more familiar Nadja, going right for the throat with its emerging blast of ominous, metallic noise. After ten minutes, however, it succumbs to a quiet melody that gets lost between some unyielding distortion and lifeless drums. The immensity of the two tracks back to back demonstrates great contrast but it's a bit uneven in the way the second half crumbles from the magnitude of its predecessor.