What Now?, by Jon Bap

What Now?

by Jon Bap

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Travis I haven't heard such visceral groove from a drum kit in some time, and it feels new, uncertain and confident simultaneously. All of the imperfections and small touches between ideas all flow together beautifully and chaotically and I love it. Best heard in track order front to back while walking alone at 3am and the world opens up to you. Favorite track: Gotta Be Your Lover.

nia andrews funky as hell. heard him for the first time on KCRW in los angeles. they played "don't run into the dark so quick" and it stopped me in my tracks. been playing the music nonstop since. such a fan. Favorite track: Other People.

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1.	Guided Meditation 09:52	buy track
2.	Forward 01:48	buy track
3.	Born Into This 02:13	buy track
4.	Other People 03:27	buy track
5.	Gotta Be Your Lover 03:23	buy track
6.	Fail 02:31	buy track
7.	Flow 01:16	buy track
8.	Intuition 03:09	buy track
9.	Ghost In The Wintertime 04:01	buy track
10.	Don't Run Into The Dark So Quick 03:18	buy track
11.	Yin 03:07	buy track
12.	Coda: Let It Happen 03:07	buy track

about

Hyperspeed jazz drum cut-ups and jolting guitar stabs, meditative sub bass pools and fertile spoken word poetry: these are stained glass panes in the church that is multi-instrumentalist Jon Bap.

What Now?, Bap’s debut album, combs regions of free jazz, funk, hip-hop, gospel, psych rock, drum ’n’ bass, and ambient to form outsider soul music as warm as it is unheard of.

The naturally delirious sound of What Now? began with the drum work of prodigy Mike Mitchell (drummer of Stanley Clarke’s trio). Bap tracked Mitchell’s slinky, spastic drums last year when he passed through Buffalo, Bap’s hometown. Bap sat with the recordings for months listening for nuances within Mitchell’s improvisations before editing the rhythm tracks that became the basis of the oblique pop songs of What Now?.

Lyrically, the album speaks to what it’s like to be an artist in 2016. Bap finds strength in opposition to his process (“It takes a background to have a foreground.”) Yin and yang appear and reappear thematically (called out by name in penultimate track ‘Yin’). ‘Ghost In The Wintertime’ declares that now means now (“I don’t want to waste time / Let’s go”). We all just want to do what we all want to do.

Jon Bap just wants to make music. Beneath choral arrangements, poems of friends in faraway places, field sound collages, and sun-faded surf guitar chords, the heart of What Now? is a bold spiritual interrogation of the present. But the gorgeous instrumental ephemera are ornamental. The question (What Now?) is real.

credits

released July 29, 2016

All tracks written, produced and performed by Jon Bap
With Mike Mitchell on drums
Featuring Ben Hixon on lead guitar for 'Flow' and 'Intuition'
Lyrics for 'Coda: Let It Happen', 'Fail' and the poem after 'Ghost In The Wintertime' by Riss Meesh
Poetry for 'Forward' by Marshnell Rathi
Poetry for 'Yin' by Michael Ransbottom

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Jon Bap Dallas, Texas

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