EP REVIEW: OLYMPIC BINGO ‘ALOOF’
Released through Paper Rock Scissors Record, the experimental album Aloof by the Australia-based multi-instrumentalist William Bahnisch, aka Olympic Bingo, has a wild span of the color palette in its sound experimentation. Aloof takes you on an adventure centering on the expedition of jazz aesthetics, stretching out to alternative rock, shoegaze, soul, world music, sound effects, and cinematic soundtrack.
Photo credit: Rodney Magazinovic
The key track “Clouds” featuring Ciara Walsh explores the unpredictable essence of clouds with an extension to humanity and nature itself. The ebbs and flows are stored in stillness, glimmering in the dark in a lush, beautiful texture. Drums break the silence, bringing motion and movement along with a modest, kinetic bass line. Ciara Walsh’s stunning voice travels in between like a butterfly, landing on the everchanging shades. Turmoil and danger hide behind the increased dissonance, but chaos soon breathes into an immersive, stringlike soundscape. “Clouds” is everchanging, free, and inspired.
“Lemonade Serenade” brings you to a European, stylish coffee shop sitting on the city corner. In a cozy, laid-back afternoon, with bright, twinkling sunlight shedding from the shadow of leaves, saxophone solo and syncopated Brillian rhythms bathing in the warm, cloudy sonic environment.
“Tropicalismo” traces back cultural origins behind the Afro-Cuban bell pattern. It leans towards urban bossa nova with a warm, vibrant color and drifts into a raw, earthy communal drumming. It expands to jazz improv along the line of history and disappears in the natural surroundings.
The landscape changes again in “Should I Know Her.” Expansive guitar and head-hitting explosive percussion, ethereal vocal carries out dreamful, captivating melodies, “Should I Know Her” leans towards the emotive rock side of shoegaze with grunge undertone and Afro-Cuban percussive afterheat casually tugged in its surreal sonic wall.
PURCHASE ALOOF & FOLLOW OLYMPIC BINGO
