“…And The Next Day” single and BASS WOMB ROOM album by Melissa Auf der Maur OUT TODAY
BASS WOMB ROOM: My ‘90s 4-Track Demos x Field Recordings - Out Now
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 her 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
“‘…And The Next Day’ is the opening song of this music release. It was written and recorded in my living room home studio in 1999, on my Tascam 4-Track and was self mixed there and then. There has been no modern intervention other than mastering. It lives alongside the interstitial sound pieces connecting my seven '90’s demo song recordings. My home recordings from the 1990s in Los Angeles possess a purity and innocence that starkly contrasts with the rising pressure from the major label-driven music industry for me and my peers to create glossy hit songs.
This home practice of mine was an act of self-protection, in tandem with my journal keeping and photographing. Free from any label or band member waiting for me to “deliver”. A world of my own, disconnected from the industry I existed in before I even joined Hole. It was a way for me to stay connected to the Montreal art student, who picked up a bass, and a camera to find myself, and bare my soul with a trusted, intimate few, of my local life.
The girl back home was always waiting for me in spirit, arms and heart wide open, to welcome me back from my journey into the abyss of the American alternative music scene that had exploded into global consumer mayhem. In these early songs of mine, I can still hear her, and I wanted to share that part of my journey with fellow analog, human, lovers of sound now, in the 21st century.
May this sonic time capsule be an anchor for us all, to find our way back to a more innocent time, a lost world, that miraculously still lives within us all. This archive project, which includes my '90s Rock Memoir, Photographs Book and Exhibition, is an offering from the past, for our collective future.”
- Melissa Auf der Maur -
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. 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.
