Biography
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Born
16 April 1989 (age 35)
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Born In
Tarzana, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, United States
Will Wiesenfeld AKA Baths was born in 1989, in Los Angeles, California.
Wiesenfield is a classically trained musician, and began learning the piano at the age of four “to compete with his brother”. By twelve he had “completely abandoned it,” but continual musical experimenting lead him to record his first piece of music at age fourteen. Under a previous moniker, , he wrote four albums and three EPs. He also ventured into a more ambient style with side-project Geotic, a project which Irish magazine State.ie called “gorgeous”.
After adopting the name Baths, he released debut album Cerulean on independent record label Anticon. He recorded the entire album in two months from his bedroom. The BBC’s Mike Diver claims Baths’ nearest musical sound-a-like is chillwave musician Toro Y Moi. Pitchfork noted Baths’ influences, acts such as Björk and Flying Lotus, were “obvious” in his work.
Drowned in Sound noted Baths’ use of “unorthodox” sounds layered in and around the electronics, in particular “clicking pens, vocal samples, rustling blankets and scissor snaps”. British newspaper The Guardian’s Paul Lester commented he was reminded of “J Dilla playing around with the Pavement and Prince catalogues” while listening to the album. While a lot of his music is instrumental, it can occasionally incorporate vocals, most of them falsetto.
Cerulean was listed by the AV Club as the 21st best album of 2010. It made Pitchfork’s Album of the Year: Honorable Mention list.
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