Nadja announce new record, Luminous Rot, out on May 21st via Southern Lord

Nadja are returning with a new record! The duo of multi-instrumentalist Aidan Baker and bassist Leah Buckareff have been making making music which can be described as ambient doom, dreamsludge, or metalgaze since 2005, combining the atmospheric textures of shoegaze and ambient/electronic music with the heaviness, density, and volume of metal, noise, and industrial. For their new record, Luminous Rot, the duo retain their overblown ambient sound, and explore shorter and more tightly structured songs that reflect their interests not only in metal, but also post-punk, cold-wave, shoegaze and industrial.

Thematically, the record explores ideas of “first contact” and the difficulties of recognising alien intelligence. This was in part inspired by reading such writers as Stanislaw Lem and Cixin Lui – in particular, theories on astro-physics, multi-dimensionality, and spatial geometry in “The Three Body Problem” -, as well as Margaret Wertheim’s “A Field Guide To Hyperbolic Space,” about mathematician Daina Taimina’s work with crochet to illustrate hyperbolic space and geometry.

Luminous Rot was recorded between their home studio, Broken Spine Studios, and their live rehearsal studio, both in the district of Lichtenberg, Berlin. This new record  also marks the first to be mixed by someone else other than the duo, who in this case was David Pajo. The duo comments, “as big fans of Slint, we thought he might fore-front the more angular, post-punk elements of our music – the mix is quite different from our previous albums. But, as usual, we had James Plotkin (Khanate, OLD, etc) master the album as we trust his ears and aesthetic, as he’s mastered numerous records of ours”. Below you can listen to the record’s title-track.

Luminous Rot will be released on CD and digital formats via Southern Lord on May 21st, with the LP version arriving on August 13th.

Photo credit: Janina Gallert