Babaji
Tribal Ecstacy

review = B

Glen Volsunga dances to the beat of a different drummer. Always has. For years, Volsunga fronted Bacchanal, a local thrash jam outfit that combined aggressive post-punk urgency, acid soaked hippie space exploration, and a party naked brand of do-the-good-stuff-now hedonism. That’s right, style -and- substance. These days the swami of the sonic boinkfest is deep into techno. Volsunga’s latest project, Babaji, is a no-holds-barred electrobeat thumporama that grabs listeners with insanely fast, chest pounding drumatron loops, and takes them on a frenetic trip through gurgling bubbles of technotone soundbytes, sampled voice loops, and synthesized keyboard tones, ultimately leaving nothing more than a puddle of melted brain goo at the digital doorstep of new millenium bohemia. And it’s all by design. After whacking listeners over the head and into raving loonies with a fast and furious opener, -Tribal Ecstacy- methodically changes pace from one track to the next. By the time the last two songs come around, the vibe is more ambient than manic. Things get down right tribal on the title track with waves of didjeridoo and real live hand drums splashing against the backdrop of signal processed electronica before getting just plain weird with the helter-skelter disorientation of the final track. And with song titles like -Infinite Bliss-, -Om-, -Eternal Joy-, and -New World Order-, it’s clear that Volsunga is once again up to more than just making mind bending music.