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MELISSA AUF DER MAUR Announces ‘Bass Womb Room’ Exhibition Soundtrack Featuring Previously Unreleased Music
Melissa Auf Der Maur, best known as bassist for Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins in the 1990s, has announced "Bass Womb Room: My '90s 4-Track Demos X Field Recordings", her first new music release in over 15 years. The record combines seven previously unheard four-track demos she wrote and recorded at home during the '90s with eight new interlude pieces composed for her forthcoming photography exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, offering fans a rare, unpolished counterpoint to the studio-produced rock she made with her bands at the time.
The album arrives digitally and on cassette on 4 September via Envision Records, timed alongside the exhibition "Melissa Auf Der Maur: My '90s Rock Photographs", opening 2 September at the AGO, and an accompanying 240-page photobook out 8 September through DelMonico Books/D.A.P. The original demos were recorded on a Tascam four-track using acoustic guitar, bass, a vintage Ross phaser pedal and lo-fi tape tricks, layered with diary-inspired lyrics and field recordings such as a dripping tap and camera shutter clicks; they remain unaltered aside from mastering. The exhibition's "Bass Womb Room" installation, co-produced with Alex Crow, pairs a mirror-pyramid video display with sound drawn from handycam footage Auf Der Maur shot on tour, tied together by a recurring heartbeat motif.
In short
- Melissa Auf Der Maur announces first new music in 15+ years
- "Bass Womb Room" features unreleased '90s four-track demos, out 4 September
- Ties into AGO photography exhibition and photobook launching in September
Explained simply
Melissa Auf Der Maur was a bassist for the prominent 1990s rock bands Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins. She is releasing "Bass Womb Room: My '90s 4-Track Demos X Field Recordings", her first album in over fifteen years, which contains home recordings she made during the 1990s alongside new compositions written for an accompanying art exhibition.
The album includes seven previously unheard demos that Auf Der Maur recorded at home using basic equipment during the 1990s, plus eight new instrumental interludes. The original recordings remain unaltered from when she made them, preserving their raw quality and offering a contrast to the polished studio music she made with her bands.
The release accompanies a photography exhibition opening at the Art Gallery of Ontario, displaying pictures Auf Der Maur took during her touring years in the 1990s. The exhibition, along with a published photobook and video installation, brings together her musical and visual work from that period in a single artistic project.
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