It’s three years since this instrumental Chicago trio released its last proper album, but Bitchin Bajas has hardly been idle. Collectively, the band has collaborated with Bonnie Prince Billy, ethnographic filmmaker Olivia Wyatt and fellow cosmic droners Natural Information Society. A couple of them contribute to Circuit Des Yeux. And let’s not even get started on each musician’s own projects. While there’s evidence of these dalliances in the increased prominence of percussion in Bitchin Bajas’ sound as well as the decision to cover a Sun Ra tune (“Angels And Demons At Play,” which the threesome plays quite nicely), Bajas Fresh is close enough to its predecessors in sound and style that you could scramble their tunes together in a playlist and no one would be the wiser. Bitchin Bajas’ plush, but not too polished layers of keyboards and woodwinds bridge the gap between analog-age ambient music, backcountry krautrock and meditative cosmic jazz. Tune in, turn on, and keep it fresh.
—Bill Meyer
