BOOM BIP (aka. Bryan Hollon) debut solo album, Seed To Sun catapulted him from Cincinnatis hip hop underground to the lofty realms of the international indie cognoscenti, including John Peel heralding Boom Bip as a "modern day Captain Beefheart" after his first Peel Session.
Combining a palette of laptops, hip-hop and rock, Boom Bip went one further and turned Seed To Sun into a four piece live band, performing at Glastonbury, Dedbeat Festival, London’s Ether Festival, and the Pompidou Centre in Paris to name a few. Boom Bip was also invited back to record a second Peel Session included on his 2004 album Corymb. including a string of extraordinary remixes by his contemporaries including Boards of Canada, Mogwai and Four Tet.
Meanwhile, Boom Bip upped stakes and moved to Silverlake in LA to start work on Blue Eyed in the Red Room. Cue rolling hills, flowers in bloom, views of Silverlake, beautiful sunsets every night and hummingbirds outside his studio window:
"This album was started on a clean slate, in a new place, with new inspiration,"
"You can hear that in the songs, the fear, excitement, loneliness and comfort that I’ve felt for the past year. With Seed To Sun I was in rut and a lot of dreaming and sadness were expressed in that album."
At the same time, Blue Eyed in the Red Room found Boom Bip returned to his musical roots. He played every instrument on the album himself- which is not to say he has moved away from the ultra-finesse of his unique production style - the textures, sonic details and intricacies, tones, melodies and hypnotic reveries are all still to be found.
"I wanted the listener to get a sense of what is going on inside my head and my environment as much as possible," he explains. "Samples are a detour from that connection. Samples express what you like, but it’s someone else’s idea and product. To really connect with the listener it was essential that I play everything. While making the record I had the live show in mind the entire time. The new songs are 98% live instrumentation and have energy, structure, chord changes and dynamics. Not loop-based or beat-based like tracks in the past."
Although drums were Boom Bip’s first instrument, it was the guitar that turned him into a songwriter. "Even though I’ve tinkered with guitar and used it in songs over the years, I never fully committed to it like I did with this record," he admits. "In times of beauty and peace I can lay down delicate acoustic parts and in times of excitement or anger I can thrash an electric."
Saccherlige is both a departure and development of his musical style. Where his debut left him branded him an electronic hip hop producer and Blue Eyed, a lush, organic instrumentalist, his new EP finds him moving wholely into computer generated sounds, danceable beats and melodic electronics in which he develops some of the harder, faster electro themes that have appeared throughout his previous albums.
Punchy beats and lush melodies that are trademarks of Bip’s sound remain steadfast, however the influences of Giorgio Moroder and perhaps even 80s Italo prog-soundtrackers such as Goblin creep into the uptempo synth lines and there’s more than a hint of grimey percussive baseline to guarantee dancefloor action. These are 5 tracks of the highest calibre and we can’t wait until release date.
This EP is a link with his past work which has often included beat-driven club friendly electronics (The Move from Blue Eyed in the Red Room being a prime example) but also harks towards the sound of his next major project, Neon Neon with Gruff Rhys in which vintage / futuristic styles merge to perfection.
For more information on Boom Bip contact:
US booking: Robby Fraser -
[email protected]
US publicity: Trevor -
[email protected]
UK publicity: Ben Harris -
[email protected]
UK booking: David Levy -
[email protected]
Management: Kevin Gasser at Benchmark Mgmt. -
[email protected]
..
