Nadja are almost overwhelmingly prolific. Last year, the Toronto-based duo had seven releases; this year, they'll put out three studio full-lengths and five 12"s. Such profusion risks diminishing returns. (Justin Broadrick's Jesu and Japanese sludge rockers Boris have both lost considerable mystique with similar fecundity.) In Nadja's case, abundance is particularly counterproductive. Their ambient shoegazer metal is deep and expansive, best experienced unhurriedly. A deluge of it only suggests it is easier to make than focused pop songs.
But that makes it no less valid. Nadja may not have songs, but they have sound, so much that it almost obviates the need for structure. (Jesu and the Angelic Process use similar sounds, but both are more song-oriented.) Underneath their swirling distortion, shoegazer bands like Ride and Swervedriver were really pop bands. Nadja abstract those groups' ecstatic moments-- when pop became pow-- and dilate them into long meditations. The result is like the "bullet time" effect in The Matrix. Nadja freeze slow, cyclic chords into place, then embellish them on all sides. Around these chords hover counter-melodies, buzzing textures, and vocal fragments in an overtone-rich fog, a true "storm in heaven."
As a cloud, this sound is compelling, but it's most effective as an effluent. Two recent reissues illlustrate this. Nadja mastermind Aidan Baker has remade 2003's Skin Turns to Glass and 2005's Bliss Torn from Emptiness with today's technology; a marked progression is evident between the records. Both have peak-valley dynamics, but Skin Turns to Glass wields them more coarsely. After slowly building drones for three minutes, a drum machine stumbles in. Huge, fuzzed-out guitars lumber through slowed-down Creation Records chords. Baker piles on layers of whining, soaring textures; celestial whispers slide over the title track like a winter wind. It's beauty through brute force. This reissue tacks on a 28-minute ambient track, which ends with intriguingly chaotic death metal. However, its wispy initial 26 minutes could have been cut. As with many other reissues today, more is less.
Bliss Torn from Emptiness is darker and more nuanced. It's one long track divided into three suites that flow into each other. Their drones patiently and organically grow into teeming masses of frequencies. The low end is hulking, the midrange is gleaming, and static and feedback swarm the high end. It's like a dust storm in a cathedral. Mournful chords flood in, as sheet metal abrasions screech above. The din subsides to a single chord, as a female syllable repeats and over again. Baker then heats the chord to bioluminescence; an iron-clad drum machine rumbles underneath. The percussion is pure Godflesh; Baker cites Broadrick as an influence, but he's schooling the master now. Textures push left and right against the edges of the stereo spectrum. Disembodied vocals bubble up in agonized rapture. This is the aftershock of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless-- and it hits much harder.
