Boom Bip - From Seed to Sun
There is a healthy disregard for the boundaries of genres these days. Young upstarts, crafting monsters in the privacy of their personal studios (read their bedrooms) are patching constructs that owe their style and substance simply to their creator's whims. Bryan Hollon -- the surgeon operating under the onomatopoeic moniker of Boom Bip -- has nothing to hide really, all of his influences and predilections are lying out on table for everyone to see in From Seed to Sun. Whether it be graceful chamber music, scratchy hip-hop, cautious percolations of calculated rhythms, or sun-drenched ambient melodies, his songs are patchwork creations which have had their rough edges buffed and aligned to smooth perfection.
There is the opener, "Roads Must Roll," and the later "Pulse All Over" which are swollen and delightful like perfectly sun-ripened summer fruit, their veined surfaces stretched taut over a rich sack of nectar. Ambient mouthfuls of peach and melon. "Popsicle" drips out of "Pulse All Over," languorously unraveling from the former, distant radio voices drawing your attention to the distant horizon until the atmospheric window closes and you are left with the soft clatter of a gentle melody.
"Third Stream" rambles and lurches like an old carnival musician, his clatter box and sandbox shaker worn with age. Discordant piano variations stumble across your field of view, hand-in-hand with a muttering, molting parrot. It's a little jazz, a little hip-hop, and the whole thing stutters and wheezes like a first-generation machine that can't let go of the music. It'll play on until its parts snap.
A visit from rapper Doseone on "Mannequin Hand Trapdoor I Remember" links Boom Bip to Hollon's full collaboration with Doseone, Circle. Doseone sneaks in through the back door, adding his gentle raps to the mild catabolism of Hollon's arrangements. These tracks don't sound out of place, but are rather gentle explorations across available terrain.
That's what Boom Bip is all about really. Exploration. Planting ideas in sunny fields and seeing what grows. Patching and matching the ragged edges of beats and melodies. Growing monsters in the basement. From Seed to Sun is a hard record to categorize, but an easy one to enjoy.
Boom Bip
Lex Records [2002]
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