Melissa Auf der Maur Unveils First New Music in 16 Years

Melissa Auf der Maur is back with her first (sort of) new album in 16 years. On Bass Womb Room: My ’90s 4-Track Demos x Field Recordings, the former Hole bassist links a trove of unreleased, living-room demos she made in the 1990s with eight new interludes composed for a forthcoming photography exhibition. Those interstitials are partly built around old field recordings Auf der Maur made by placing a handycam on her amp during her time with Hole and as a touring member of the Smashing Pumpkins. The album is out digitally and on cassette on September 4, via Envision. Listen to a teaser of new composition “Skip a Beat” below.

In a statement, Auf der Maur said of the demos, “I wrote these songs in the context of rising pressure from the major label-driven music industry on myself and my peers to make glossy hit songs to dominate radio airwaves. These songs are the sound of my internal experimentation and a way of keeping the Montreal art girl alive inside. These sounds are the quiet and private side of the girl who joined the big American major label rock band.”

Bass Womb Room, the photo exhibition of the same name, opens at the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, on September 2. A 240-page photobook of the same name arrives September 8 via DelMonico Books/D.A.P. and the AGO. The title, Auf der Maur adds in the press release, refers to the bass guitar’s role as “the mother of all instruments.”

The album follows the March release of Auf der Maur’s book Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A ’90s Rock Memoir. Her last solo album was 2010’s Out of Our Minds.

Read Quinn Moreland’s recent Sunday Review of Hole’s Celebrity Skin.

Bass Womb Room: My ’90s 4-Track Demos x Field Recordings:01 Active Heart02 … And the Next Day03 Courtney Chimes In04 Desire Is Critical05 In the Reflection06 Water Wars07 Flesh Flush08 Is She His09 Billy Seoul Crowd10 Love Is the Drug11 Sparkle Bass12 Fancy Piece [ft. the Hunger World]13 River’s Dream14 Sea of Tranquility15 Skip a Beat