{"title":"Bitchin Bajas","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eBitchin Bajas began in 2010 as a solo project for Cooper Crain, guitarist and organist of Chicago krautrock band Cave, and expanded into a trio with the addition of Dan Quinlivan on synthesizer and Rob Frye, also of Cave, on flute, saxophone and guitar. The sound they developed, warm, patient, instrumental, built from analogue synthesizer textures layered alongside acoustic woodwinds and melodic fragments that repeat and slowly transform over extended durations, sits in the space between minimalism, krautrock and something that has no genre name. They have released prolifically on Drag City, and their collaborators across a fifteen-year discography have arrived from unexpected directions: Bonny \"Prince\" Billy on \"Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties\" (Drag City, 2016), and most significantly for a jazz-oriented audience, two albums with Chicago ensemble Natural Information Society, \"Automaginary\" (Drag City, 2015) and \"Totality\" (Drag City, 2025). The NIS pairing makes intuitive sense: both groups operate in the zone where acoustic and electronic instruments share melodic and rhythmic duties, where long duration is a compositional tool rather than an indulgence, and where the pulse matters more than the beat. Their 2021 album \"Switched On Ra\" is a direct tribute to Sun Ra, processing the Arkestra's music through the Bajas's synthesizer vocabulary in the spirit of Walter Carlos's \"Switched On Bach\" but with considerably less reverence and considerably more drift.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"natural-information-society-bitchin-bajas-totality-2025-drag-city-vinyl-lp","title":"Natural Information Society \u0026 Bitchin Bajas - Totality (2025 Drag City Vinyl LP)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNatural Information Society \u0026amp; Bitchin Bajas - \u003cem\u003eTotality\u003c\/em\u003e | Vinyl LP - 2025 Drag City (DC860, embossed cover)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNatural Information Society is the Chicago group led by the bassist and composer Joshua Abrams, whose music is built on the guimbri, the three-stringed bass lute of Moroccan Gnawa music, and on patient repetition: hypnotic, trance-like jazz that turns a single figure over and over until it opens up. Bitchin Bajas are a Chicago trio led by Cooper Crain, dealing in analog synthesisers, flutes and kosmische drone. The two groups first joined forces on \u003cem\u003eAutomaginary\u003c\/em\u003e in 2015, and \u003cem\u003eTotality\u003c\/em\u003e is the reunion. Over four long pieces they lock the guimbri, Lisa Alvarado's harmonium, Jason Stein's bass clarinet and Rob Frye's flute into slow, cyclical grooves, Cooper Crain's synths and organ glowing underneath. It was recorded at Steve Albini's Electrical Audio and mastered by Rashad Becker, and it sounds like it: warm, deep and physical. This is meditative music with real weight, closer to minimalism and Gnawa trance than to any conventional idea of jazz.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt arrived to some of the warmest notices of 2025, turning up on plenty of year-end lists, the kind of record people describe as a reason to bother with vinyl at all. It sits in the same broad world as the Chicago experimental scene and the wider revival of hypnotic, spiritual-minded jazz. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Drag City","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44081251680315,"sku":null,"price":70.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0630\/3203\/3339\/files\/a2364880435_10.jpg?v=1788177867"}],"url":"https:\/\/lushliferecords.com.au\/collections\/bitchin-bajas.oembed","provider":"Lush Life Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}