Review of Nadja - Desire In Uneasiness

Nadja are an experiemental/ambient duo from Toronto, Canada. What Nadja does is channel early Swans through Justin Broadrick's drum machine, sans vocals, while mixing in industrial flourishes and other interesting bits of ambience. What's also interesting is Nadja's efficiency as this is their 15th full length album in their six to seven year existence. From what I've sampled of their other releases, the formula on Desire In Uneasiness is not unlike their previous efforts.

"Disambiguation" is a droning dirge of a song that could certainly pass for an early Godflesh outtake, however one shouldn't confuse this album with being as aggressive as Godflesh (quite the contrary). The atmosphere here is similar to Godflesh' as it's very machine-like and cold. Is it some kind of satirical juxtaposition of capitalism and western society? Couldn't tell you. We just write the reviews.

"Sign Expressions" is another droning song but has bits of reverbed synth that gives the song a little more life. At thirteen minutes though, this song could be a little tedious if listened to with any level of intent. "Affective Fields" follows and mixes things up with some interesting tom-work via a drum machine. This song is interesting as there are bits of guitar and keyboard drone swirling about in the mix. None of these instruments trully manifest themselves as the song remains somewhat nebulous, but effective.

Meanwhile, "Uneasy Desire" and "Deterritorialization" round out this hour long effort in a similar fashion to the first three tracks. The sound is formulaic and there's not much musical movement here. I do believe this is done intentionally though with "drone" being the word to best describe the overall sound.

Nadja is certainly not for those with short attention spans. The music does not move much and there's little going on. Even the seasoned SunnO))) fan would need to take extra doses of Ambien to get through the hour of drone found here. Having said that, Nadja is a fascinating listen under appropriate circumstances. Those of course would need to be determined by the reader. Overall, Nadja are original, droning, and a breath of fresh air for those willing to step outside of the musical "box".

Release Details

Nadja

Desire In Uneasiness

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