NATURAL INFORMATION SOCIETY & BITCHIN BAJAS in full extent with album ‘Totality’
Years past the space time of Automaginary, Bitchin Bajas and Natural Information Society have returned at last from beyond. If the new title doesn’t clue you, Totality brings good news. Since their first collaboration, the pathways that lead from Natural Information Society’s ecstatic all-world jazz to Bitchin Bajas’ microtonal soundscapes have grown ever finer in their articulation. Across the spectrum, the septet balance a deeply searching mood with wonderfully in-pocket production feel. This makes for collective aural transport of the highest order to all those listening in.
In the time since their 2015 first convergence, the Natural Information Society have released four albums (one in collaboration with Evan Parker, one with Ari Brown) and Bitchin Bajas five (one a soundtrack, one with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, one featuring the songs of Sun Ra). Given the multivarious paths both groups have traveled, it makes sense that their second convergence seems to emanate from centuries, eons beyond or below—some undefinable elsewhere—from their first. Totality is that.
Recorded in a single day with Greg Norman at Chicago’s Electrical Audio, then slowly considered into the finished record we hear here, Totality is a sweet-tempered second child. It experiences time in ways the first kid didn’t. If you’re in it for slow-shifting trance formations, it’s gonna be cool. There’s lots here for you, lots of simmering time and synth atmospheres dappled with radiant woodwinds—but there’s some head-snapping hypno-rhythms that stand apart from the groove energies of the first one. It’s just natural facts: two different days in time separated by years, with the experience of several live encounters between the two groups in between. Beyond that, only the music can say anything else.
Totality charts impressive new launch angles from NIS & BB’s improvisatory heart, with their careful listening and response time continually redefining the space in a relaxed manner that rewards deep zoners. It’s about time we got back to the singularly-divined space of Natural Information Society & Bitchin Bajas with Totality. That’s the best way to define this new music—it’s about time.
