Bitchin Bajas are the type of band that seem perfectly balanced between the future and the past. A small group of players firmly entrenches in a deeply kosmic modular synth zone. Everything they’ve released in the last decade has always explored a slightly different take on a bubbling spacey stew.
I’ve been thrilled at everything from their razor-sharp electronics of Bitchtronics and Transporteur. The huge magnetic ambience of their self-titled Bitch Bajas double album… The Sun Ra cover of Angels And Demons At Play of their most recent collection Bajas Fresh, shows them as fearless as ever. And collaborations with Natural Information Society and Will Oldham are anything but side projects…
It’s however, only recently that I delved into their first ever release Tones/Zones and whilst it’s probably an album, the members might look back on with a degree of naivety – it is a totally unbridled joy.
Built out of a wormholing blend of synths, electronics and guitar, they waste no time in establishing a bristling suite of bleeping passages through Zone 1 and 2 . Zone 3 opens up into a huge expanding galaxy. Zone 4 meditates on a Spacemen 3 fragment. The album truly goes full widescreen in the penultimate 13 minute Zone 5 and it’s here that the Baja’s we’ve grown to love, finally become fully recognisable.
Tones/Zones is the sound of a band finding their feet in a red eyed blur. Whilst that can be sometimes of a risky move, this 41-minute opening statement hangs together beautifully as a sublimely trippy passage in sound. Tones/Zones is perhaps easy to overlook given how consistently amazing the band have become but I highly recommend turning the dial and stopping a while here.
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