Bass Womb Room OUT: September 04 2026

Envision Records is proud to welcome Melissa Auf der Maur to our roster with her first new music in 15 years. BASS WOMB ROOM: My ‘90s 4-Track Demos x Field Recordings features unreleased songs from the ‘90s recorded by Auf der Maur on her 4-track tape recorder alone in her apartment, and experimental recordings captured on tour. Produced by Melissa Auf der Maur and Alex Crow.

The BASS WOMB ROOM album is an interaction between the ambient but noisy, BASS WOMB ROOM museum installation score, and the seven '90’s demo song recordings made by the girl who took the photos in the book and exhibit (full track listing below). There is a purity and innocence in home recordings made in Los Angeles in the 1990s, that are in stark contrast with the music she was making in the studio with Hole at the time. These songs were being written in the context of rising pressure from the major label-driven music industry on her and my peers to make glossy hit songs to dominate radio airwaves, and are the sound of her internal rebellion and a way of keeping the Montreal art girl alive inside. These songs are the quiet and private side of the girl who joined the big american major label rock band …..

✶ Limited edition pink cassettes with double sided un/foldable artwork box - 500

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Never-before-heard 4-track tape recorder demos written and recorded by Melissa Auf der Maur in her living room home studios in the 1990s, on her trusted Tascam 4-Track. The songwriting and instrumentation were often anchored by an acoustic guitar, and layered with vocals and lo-fi 4 track tricks of flipping the cassette backwards, or pitch shifting. Lyrics were streams of consciousness or direct reads from her diary which she wrote in everyday. They reflect on blistered fingers, desire and the moon landing. Other instruments used were the bass, a vintage Ross phaser guitar pedal, a cheap keyboard and field recording samples of mundane daily things dripping, like her leaky faucet and camera shutter, made on a pocket-sized cassette dictaphone she carried alongside her camera.

All seven of these demos were recorded and self mixed right there and then at home. These are the final works from that time. There has been no modern intervention for this release other than mastering.

The 90s 4-Track demo songs live alongside interstitial sound pieces sculpted as the score to the AGO museum BASS WOMB ROOM installation piece. The score is compiled from audio field recordings mostly made on a video handy cam, often placed on her bass amp filming the audience during Hole and Smashing Pumpkins tours. The samples are connected by a recurring heartbeat, symbolizing the bass, and the womb that we all come from.