If the Music Stops They'll Eat Him Up

Danish composer, pianist and producer Asger Baden has made a name for himself as a film and TV series composer with his atmospheric music featured in world-acclaimed productions such as "Breaking Bad" and "The Wolfpack". After having worked on several collaborative projects and composing with the bands "The Crooked Spoke" and "Cours Lapin", Baden now releases his debut album of solo material, "If the music stops, they'll eat him up" via Berlin-based label Neue Meister. It invokes through it's nine tracks a sense of mysterious and highly visual storytelling. As is expected of a composer who has worked with cinema extensively, the music unfolds much like a motion picture, conjuring images that are rich and textured. It's as if Baden was painting a wide and vast musical room where the listener is invited to explore it's every nook and cranny, from soft percussive footsteps in the background, to the whispering rumbles of synthesizers just in front or the frail conversation of strings happening to the side. There's an overwhelming sense of openness and atmosphere to every sound, with a churchy echo delineating the space that surrounds them. There's definitely a lot of space for fantasy within "If the music stops, they'll eat him up", and much is left to the imagination of the listener. The album's title in itself begs a frightening question - "who'll eat who up?". The accompanying cover art imagery, by Danish illustrator John Kenn Mortensen, with depictions of creatures that - depending on the beholder - might be viewed as friendly or menacing, only amplifies the sense of reverie. Like all good pieces of art, it incites more questions than formulates answers.