Baja

Baja’s press release labels the band with more genres than I think I’ve ever seen slapped onto one band: “stripped-down folk,” “(free-)jazz,” “twisted pop,” “electroacoustic sound,” “indie-tronic” … I think you begin to get the point. The project is the brainchild of Daniel Vujanic, a collection of nine songs all practicing the postmodern notion of deconstruction to such a degree that any reviewer would have a hard time slapping a label on it. Songs (if they can be called that) begin, evolve, stop, start again, devolve into nothing but a CD skipping and then veer off into recorded conversations with occasional vocals.

One wonders what Mr. Vujanic is going for. Of course, postmodern philosophy would tell you that that is the wrong question to be asking, but since my job is not to talk about philosophy but Baja’s music I’ll try and stick to that. Wolfhour is a collection of sound fragments cut and pasted together with seeming randomness that makes its most frequent dabbling-place the realm of free form electro-jazz, with the most sexy instrument in the orchestra weaving its way in and out of the tracks.

In the middle of “Phrem” monotonous picked guitars fade into a conversation as a man says “Okay. I’m done.” The song then flows into a further cacophony of sounds that flows together well, the guitars, synths, sax and drums coming together to make a strangely peaceful mix. But the key here is that sounds come together in harmony, something that doesn’t happen particularly frequently.

“Go Wolpertinger” is a wonderfully melodic wave of guitars-actually woven together with a common theme – and the result is so unified that I wondered if it was actually meant to happen. I’m happy it did, intentional or not. “Djilas Plus” starts out in an attempt to do the same thing only with keyboards and pianos, veers off-key, then ends up somewhere in the stratospheres above and beyond left field with random shuffling sounds, saxophones and keyboards. To be frank, it sounds a bit like a little kid cutting and pasting sounds he recorded while listening simultaneously to a jazz concert while watching a horror film and randomly plucking a guitar.

“Bous Makel” has a repetitively effective intro, with no less than five acoustic guitars filtering through the speakers at once, dark and melancholy. Vocals phase in and out of the song both female and male, and the results really are quite beautiful until about two minutes into the song, when the entire thing fragments into a hundred pointless pieces. And perhaps Vujanic is trying to make a point about life in general, mostly it’s just very annoying. Instead of a worthwhile song you get electro-psychedelic noodling.

I’ll be the first to admit that at times Wolfhour touches brilliance. The problem is, the line between genius and stupidity is a fine one, and Baja can’t seem to figure out which side it wants to err on. Not that this is stupid music, but you know what I’m talking about. The epic rises and sense of mood and emotion so essential to (prominently) instrumental music are almost impossible to reach when hacked apart by jarring shifts and seemingly pointless sounds. Maybe I’m just not brilliant enough and I’m the one who’s confused. Oh well.

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