… Read Full Bio ↴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, [Post-foetus], 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.
Nightly
Baths Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Climbing to the moon/my doom
Old friend sun
See plenty of yourself/myself
Watching in your/my world
Pride that I've to lose
Lying in my/your bed,
Climbing to the moon/my doom
See plenty of yourself/myself
Watching in your/my world
Pride that I've to lose
The lyrics of the song Nightly by Baths are quite introspective and speak about the artist's own existential musings. The opening line, "Lying in my/your bed, climbing to the moon/my doom", seems to indicate that the artist lays awake at night, contemplating his own mortality and the inevitability of death. He feels like he is reaching for the unreachable, much like someone trying to climb the moon, which he describes as "my doom". This could be interpreted as a feeling of being trapped, or of being unable to escape the inescapable reality of death.
The second line of the song speaks to the artist's relationship with the sun. He describes the sun as an "old friend", something that is familiar and comforting to him. However, he also notes that when he looks at the sun, he sees plenty of himself/myself. This could be interpreted in a couple of ways - it could be seen as the artist recognizing his own mortality in the face of the eternal sun, or as a recognition of the sun's power over him. In either case, the sun becomes a metaphor for something greater than the artist himself.
The final lines of the song, "Watching in your/my world, pride that I've to lose" seem to indicate that the artist is recognizing that he is a small part of a larger world, and that he needs to let go of his own pride in order to fully engage with it. He sees himself as both part of and apart from the world, watching it from a distance but also deeply connected to it.
Overall, the lyrics of Nightly speak to the artist's own struggle with existential questions and his recognition of his own smallness in the larger scheme of things.
Line by Line Meaning
Lying in my/your bed,
Reclining in my/your place of rest,
Climbing to the moon/my doom
Striving towards an unattainable goal/my impending demise
Old friend sun
Familiar presence of the shining star
See plenty of yourself/myself
Recognize facets of your/my being in the surroundings
Watching in your/my world
Observing events unfolding in your/my reality
Pride that I've to lose
Ego that needs to be shed
Lying in my/your bed,
Reclining in my/your place of rest,
Climbing to the moon/my doom
Striving towards an unattainable goal/my impending demise
Old friend sun
Familiar presence of the shining star
See plenty of yourself/myself
Recognize facets of your/my being in the surroundings
Watching in your/my world
Observing events unfolding in your/my reality
Pride that I've to lose
Ego that needs to be shed
Contributed by Chase R. Suggest a correction in the comments below.