Bitchin Bajas | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Bitchin Bajas began in 2010 as a solo side project for Cooper Crain, guitarist of Chicago Krautrock revivalists Cave. The early sounds of Bitchin Bajas were equally psychedelic but decidedly less aggressive than Crains primary band, opting for more textural exploration than rhythmic force. The project quickly became prolific in its release of music, starting with the Tones & Zones full-length in 2010 and trickling out split singles, EPs, cassette-only releases, and the like among more actualized full-lengths every year that followed. The solo project was expanded to a duo with the inclusion of Mahjonggs Dan Quinlivan, adding more synth and guitar textures to Crains web of spectral sound. Rob Frye, also of Cave, eventually became a member of Bitchin Bajas, contributing flute, saxophone, and guitar. Albums documenting the groups development arrived often, with 2011s Water Wrackets, 2012s Vibraquatic, and 2013s more fully realized Bitchitronics. Though the band had either self-released its music or worked with a variety of lesser-known indie labels, Bitchitronics arrived on indie giant Drag City. The next year, a self-titled double album materialized, seeing the band branch out into more sprawling fields of sound over its eight-song and almost 80-minute running time. Transporteur, a shorter LP on the French label Hands in the Dark, was released in 2015. That same year saw the group collaborating with fellow Chicago spell-casters Natural Information Society on Automaginary, and 2016s Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties brought Bonny "Prince" Billy along for the ride. Also in 2016, the group collaborated with filmmaker Olivia Wyatt (Sublime Frequencies) for the film Sailing a Sinking Sea, which was released as an LP/DVD set. The double album Bajas Fresh appeared in 2017. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 12 Title: Consciousness 1/2 / Dickie Domecon... Released: 2011 Tracks: 4 Duration: 31:46 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Consciousness I (09:34) 2 Consciousness 2 (05:51) 3 Ride the Ether (07:16) 4 Dickie Domecon (09:05) |
 | Album: 2 of 12 Title: Water Wrackets Released: 2011 Tracks: 6 Duration: 27:33 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Water 1 (03:59) 2 Water 2 (05:24) 3 Water 4 (05:23) 4 Water 3 (07:16) 5 Water 2 (Reprise) (00:53) 6 Water 1 (Reprise) (04:38) |
 | Album: 3 of 12 Title: Vibraquatic Released: 2012-04-21 Tracks: 3 Duration: 37:19 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Prismatic Reflections (17:03) 2 Bajas Ragas (09:55) 3 Jelly (10:21) |
 | Album: 4 of 12 Title: Krausened Released: 2013-02-26 Tracks: 2 Duration: 34:30 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Krausened (17:28) 2 Intervals (17:02) |
 | Album: 5 of 12 Title: Bitchitronics Released: 2013-07-17 Tracks: 4 Duration: 00:00 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Transcendence (?) 2 Inclusion (?) 3 Sun City (?) 4 Turiya (?) |
| Bitchitronics : Allmusic album Review : Chicago dream/drone unit Bitchin Bajas get in the zone and stay in the zone with Bitchitronics, their most high-definition album in a prolific stream of releases. Originally an offshoot of the mostly instrumental and highly Krautrock-influenced group Cave, Bitchin Bajas sound completely removed from the side-project stigma on these four lengthy tracks, presenting languid, textural explorations with too much focus and intensity to appear incidental or secondary. While working in the same lucid instrumental patchwork of sounds as contemporaries like Mountains, Emeralds, and Tape, opening track "Transcendence" immediately calls to mind the No Pussyfooting-era collaborations of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. Cooper Crains E-Bowed guitar leads take on the same unrelenting tone as Fripps patented Frippertronics sound, or to a lesser degree some of the early-morning mediation vibes of Neu! guitarist Michael Rothers solo albums. "Inclusion" piles gentle loops on top of each other until they build a somewhat trembly tower, at which point playful flute and woodwinds enter the picture, funneling the echo-treated loops to a soft conclusion as they drift in and out of phase with each other. Overt references to Alice Coltrane show up in hidden harp sounds buried deep in the mix, as well as the title of the almost 17-minute album-closing track, "Turiya." Turiya was the name Coltrane took on later in life, and her influence is apparent in the highly controlled repetition and pure-spirited, hopeful feeling of the track. The lengthy, droning bubbles of synth textures, organ interjections, and wandering, nebulous tones stretch out seemingly infinitely before abruptly stopping. After feeling the piece unfold and grow, the sudden end pulls the rug out from under the listener completely, not in a bratty or malicious way but more in a way that accentuates the weight of the sudden silence and the deep contrast between the peaceful emptiness Bitchin Bajas create and the awareness of nothingness once those sounds are gone. | ||
 | Album: 6 of 12 Title: Bitchin Bajas Released: 2014-08-26 Tracks: 8 Duration: 1:15:59 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Tilang (18:38) 2 Asian Carp (05:25) 3 Ruby (06:50) 4 Field Study (08:24) 1 Brush (06:29) 2 Bueu (12:13) 3 Orgone (08:33) 4 Pieces of Tape (09:27) |
| Bitchin Bajas : Allmusic album Review : Chicago drone outfit Bitchin Bajas first splintered off of Krautrock revivalists Cave, serving as a more relaxed side project for Cave guitarist Cooper Crain but soon growing into a more realized band over the course of various tape and small-run vinyl releases. With this self-titled fifth album, the Bajas reach the most beautiful and all-encompassing articulation of their sound, effortlessly sifting soothing ambience out of an intricate web of electronics and organic instruments. One of the most effective aspects of the record is its lengthy running time and the expansive, sprawling nature of many of the eight pieces here. The record almost reaches the eighty-minute mark and begins with nearly 19 minutes of slowly evolving sounds, drones, and tones that make up the opening opus "Tilang." "Tilang" starts with a loping string section playing a raga-like drone before walls of fluid synthesizers fade in, eventually reaching a crest and subsiding again as gentle harp sounds take over. A theme quickly emerges of largely different sounds working to express the same feelings, following with the gamelan bells and flute-like electronics of "Asian Carp" and the meeting of bubbling deep space synth tones, delay-soaked new agey woodwinds, and field recordings of river and bird sounds on "Field Study." All the songs fit together but each represents a very different take on ambience, moving from the more natural feel of the albums first half to the cold arpeggiated vintage synthesizers and vamping, spacy saxophone of "Bueu," a tune that taps into Bitchin Bajas more Krautrock-inspired side. The ideas here linger, hover, and slowly erode, but none of these lengthy explorations ever drags or falls flat. Though "exciting" isnt exactly the word, there is a sense of both purpose and drive in all of Bitchin Bajas blurry, diversely composed drone-scapes, and this album as a whole is easily their best and most carefully crafted work up until this point. [Bitchin Bajas was released on cassette and LP.] | ||
 | Album: 7 of 12 Title: Automaginary Released: 2015 Tracks: 5 Duration: 41:38 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 On No Fade (19:24) 2 Anemometer (04:27) 3 Tricks Me My Mind (05:18) 4 Sign Spinners (04:31) 5 Automaginary (07:58) |
 | Album: 8 of 12 Title: Transporteur Released: 2015-05-04 Tracks: 4 Duration: 33:34 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Raias Baixas (10:09) 2 Planète T (06:33) 3 Marimba (09:13) 4 No Tabac (07:39) |
 | Album: 9 of 12 Title: Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties Released: 2016-03-18 Tracks: 9 Duration: 58:08 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 May Life Throw You a Pleasant Curve (03:13) 2 Nature Makes Us for Ourselves (07:59) 3 Your Heart Is Pure, Your Mind Is Clear, Your Soul Devout (08:18) 4 Your Whole Family Are Well (07:41) 5 Despair Is Criminal (06:18) 6 You Are Not "Superman" (04:55) 7 Show Your Love and Your Love Will Be Returned (08:00) 8 You Will Soon Discover How Truly Fortunate You Really Are (09:13) 9 Your Hard Work Is About to Pay Off. Keep on Keeping On. (02:31) |
| Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties : Allmusic album Review : The third outing from the Cooper Crain-led, Windy City-based experimental trio sees the Bitchin Bajas teaming up with the equally mercurial Will Oldham (aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy) for a good, old-fashioned minimalist hoedown. The aptly named Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties offers up a trance-inducing set of bucolic folk emissions that pair elliptical melodies with Oldham riffing on fortune-cookie aphorisms. Opener "May Life Throw You a Pleasant Curve" eases the listener into the float tank with a summery, Incredible String Band-inspired refrain and Oldhams affable warble, and coming in at just over three minutes, it serves as a pleasant apéritif. What follows is largely the same, but bereft of any sort of brevity, which is to be expected from a musical partnership between two such metaphysically minded entities. The Bajas and Oldham promise the listener that "you will receive many unknowable hours of joy from this album of collaborative cosmic music," but that largely depends on the listeners threshold for homilies and loops. There is a strong spiritual undercurrent at play throughout the nine tracks, especially on the epic "Your Heart Is Pure, Your Mind Is Clear, Your Soul Devout," which arrives via the soft clang of what sounds like Buddhist meditation bells. That sentiment is echoed again on the monastic "Your Whole Family Are Well," which echoes (sonically) the Muslim call to prayer, as well as mid-period Dead Can Dance. All of the free associating and good-natured droning can be a bit torpor inducing, so its a nice surprise when the closer, "Your Hard Work Is About to Pay Off, Keep on Keeping On," arrives. Loose, languid, yet structured enough to feel like a proper bit of pop craft, it brings things back to earth, if only for a short spell, its unfettered hippie heart aglow with positivity and possibility. | ||
 | Album: 10 of 12 Title: Sailing a Sinking Sea Released: 2016-05-13 Tracks: 19 Duration: 39:38 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Poh Lao (Island) (02:14) 2 Ekan Duyung (Sea Cow) (02:38) 3 Ek Kue Bao (Man Riding a Buffalo Human) (01:44) 4 Ta-Ao (Sea) (01:10) 5 Yainang (Mermaid) (02:02) 6 Bituak Tu Plat, Bituak Ploh (Shooting Star) (01:30) 7 Neepui Amon Kah (Sweet Dream) (01:45) 8 Bu Nga (Flower) (01:41) 9 Nam Liam (Hexagon) (02:45) 10 La Boon (Tsunami) (02:11) 11 La Or (Stormy Sky) (03:24) 12 Ko Taan (Forest) (02:38) 13 Lo Pod (Seaweed) (01:14) 14 Ken Namat Babi (Water with Ripples) (00:31) 15 Buak Ka Aew (Fruit) (00:57) 16 Apui Koh Mai (Firefly) (01:08) 17 Nopat Noleng Dalam En (Jump Into the Water) (02:02) 18 Poong Kaan (School of Fish) (05:20) 19 Ka Tei, Ka Toi, Ka Tao (Ghost) (02:34) |
 | Album: 11 of 12 Title: Bajas Fresh Released: 2017-11-17 Tracks: 7 Duration: 1:20:22 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Jammu (11:03) 2 Circles On Circles (08:34) 3 Angels and Demons At Play (06:17) 4 Yonaguni (09:40) 5 2303 (23:03) 6 Chokayo (12:21) 7 Be Going (09:21) |
 | Album: 12 of 12 Title: The Encyclopedia of Civilizations Vol. 2: Atlantis Released: 2018-06-18 Tracks: 4 Duration: 40:11 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Panorama (07:28) 2 Lineage (07:04) 3 Deluge (05:26) 4 Diaspora (20:12) |