Zig Zaj is the album most rock bands wish they were making when they decide to expand their ideas, experiment a bit and utilise electronics to widen their palette. The difference is that Boom Bip is coming from the other direction, so his electronics aren’t just superficial icing. In fact, the opposite is just about true. A range of guests, including Bon Iver’s Mike Noyce, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos and Australia’s own Luke Steele add the melodic icing to music that would stand on its own. The album is an exploration of the melding of rock and electronics, but it is the electronics in control.
Bryan Hollon started Boom Bip over a decade ago, it’s name a play on the term ‘boom bap’ used to describe the sound of classic 90s hip-hop production. The Boom Bip sound was founded on a similar bastardisation of that actual sound – a twisted take on hip-hop. But he has moved a long way from those sonic origins on Zig Zaj, though the structural and dynamic devices largely remain. The variety is wide – ‘Pelé’ sounds like The Cure jamming with Neu!. ‘Do As I Do’ flirts with a kind of hi-fidelity hypnagogic trance under Cate Le Bon’s accented croon. ‘Manabozh’ continues the contemporary love of indie-rockers for tracks with a swing beat and, with Money Mark’s vocals buried in the mix, is a real highlight. A couple of tracks falter late in the album. ‘New Order’, uses a paint-by-numbers drum’n’bass drum loop and, with it’s bland melodic and chordal structure, falls into the trap of sounding like a rock band trying to use elements of electronics of which they have no real understanding. ‘Tumtum’ sounds like something classic, umm, New Order might have rejected as one of their B-sides as it simply just doesn’t really go anywhere. Thankfully, these glitches are just about saved by the album’s conclusion – the nearly 10 minutes of moody exploration which shifts through a variety of textures in ‘Automaton’ and ‘Mascot And The Moth’s lo-fi squawl which eventually breaks into a kind of latter day trip-hop.
I have my reservations. The sheer breadth of Hollon’s explorations naturally means the risk of flatter moments is real. Zig Zaj could possibly even be accused of being unfocused. However, when he gets things right, which he does a fair amount of the time, the results are very very good.
Adrian Elmer
