Inland See

CAVEの中心人物、COOPER CRAIN率いるエクスペリメンタル・シンセ / エレクトロニック・バンド BITCHIN BAJASが『BAJASCILLATORS 』(2022年)に続くニューアルバム『INLAND SEE』をリリース。BITCHIN BAJASの魅力であるドローン的要素をべ須にアーリー・エレクトロニクスや80'Sニューエイジ、アンビエント・ミュージックが持っていた愛らしさやD.I.Y.なアティテュード、更にはジャズからの影響を融合させた独特の浮遊感を持ったエレクトロニック・エクスペリメンタル作品となっています。

The perpetually evolving Chicago trio Bitchin Bajas 2022 album Bajascillators was a beautiful swarm of MIDI-mapped bell tones and forever-spiraling synth sequences, offering a new reading on the Berlin School-indebted cosmic electronic music theyd been making for years at that point. Listening casually, the Bajas next proper studio album, Inland See (not counting Totality, their jazz/synth collaborative record with Natural Information Society that was released just months earlier) might sound like more of the same. Shimmery drones; slow-moving synthesizer melodies and computeristic sounds that overlap and dissolve; minimal, almost subliminal rhythms; and more of the kind of hazed-over sound colors that Bitchin Bajas have made their own over the course of their impressive run. Closer attention to the sounds and arrangements reveals some wild differences between Inland See and everything before it. These four lingering tracks were written while the Bajas were on tour and then brought to the studio when they returned home, recorded with all the players in the same room and with the strict limitation of adding no post-production reverb. That difference alone makes Inland See a more living, breathing affair than the in-the-box sound of Bajascillators. Opening track "Skylarking" lays out a highway system of glowing synthesizer tones, soft percussion, and live horns that give the song a feel somewhere between spiritual jazz and new age ambient music. "Reno" begins with pastoral phrases being shared between acoustic piano and synth, gradually growing to include delay-effected electronic drums, saxophone, and other electronic counterparts. The melodies are simple and friendly, and it feels akin to the best instrumental moments on Enos Another Green World. Theres a loose, formless feel to "Keiji Dreams" thats interrupted occasionally by starbursts of nostalgic note clusters, and closing track "Graut" ties all of Inland Sees various inclinations together over the course of its 18-minute run time. Glistening synth ambience gives way to Krautrock pulsations and Cluster-like drum-machine beats, eventually picking up the tempo as waves of flutes and programmed electronic sounds begin swirling. Like so many of Bitchin Bajas albums, Inland See is dense and dizzying without ever feeling cluttered. Its a clearer-than-usual sonic landscape from the band, one that invites the listeners to get lost in the details, where they can see how truly separate this chapter is from the rest. ~ Fred Thomas