Bitchin' Bajas * Skylark Lounge / Rochester NY

The next album from Bitchin Bajas — the trio of Cooper Crain, Rob Frye and Daniel Quinlivan — is near! The successor to 2022’s Bajascillators glides easily into frame, but once there, Inland See is deceptively immediate: four songs, entirely within themselves, all together forming an essential whole. Inland See is out September 26; the lead single "Skylarking" arrives today with a new visualizer featuring visuals by Nick Ciontea.

With every successive Bitchin Bajas release, we see that the real key for them is a sense of discovery, that tingle that comes when you feel something breaking through. The sky opening up. Take "Skylarking": a remarkable construction, built to and fro in the ether, but with a deceptive grasp of four-on-the-floor rhythm. A space dance that achieves completion in almost aggressive terms — aggressive like an oxygen bath! — showcasing jewels from their world music and jazz archives, then returning to their undulous source drone, riding smoothly back into silence. The stuff that fills this Inland See holds you up powerfully, as if you’re floating, saltwater or helium-wise — effervescent, effortless, elemental.

This music was mostly written on the road. It’s an unusual happening for Bitchin Bajas! They were open for it, though — the landmarked Bajascillators kept them out there for a while, and when inspiration struck, there they're rolling. When it was time to render it to tape and find the record there, they did the whole thing at Electrical Audio, recorded in Studio B by Cooper. Recording all together in the room there lent a sense of space, which they dug and captured as natural as possible. No reverb at all added after the fact. Some additional recording and mixing was done at home by the Bajas, then Phil Baljeu did up the art. Soon enough, Inland See is flowing toward you, through the hi-fi — and you'll feel it all in the air.

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