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Album Details

• Artist: Boom Bip
• Album: Blue Eyed in the Red Room
• Label: Lex
• Year of Release: 2005
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2005-06-11

I had a preconceived image of what Boom Bip (Bryan Hollan) was supposed to sound like and Blue Eyed In The Red Room was definitely not it. My image of Boom Bip was a hip hop artist that focused on the instrumental side. Maybe a little more that DJ Shadow but along the same lines. This album is much closer to something like Boards of Canada than anything DJ Shadow has ever done. Now I haven't heard anything before Red Room but from what I've read, this album is quite a departure for the Cincinnati based artist. The album opens up with the instrumental "Cimple", a track that wouldn't sound out of place on a Lemon Jelly album. The beats start to come in on "The Move" but no hip hop, closer to pure electronica. Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals makes a great contribution to "Do's and Don'ts" a hypnotic track with Gruff leading Boom Bip's experimental instrumentation. Then Boom Bip gets into almost an atmospheric realm (sounding like Bill Frisell on guitar) with "Girl Toy". Nina Nastasia provides vocals on the ethereal "The Matter (of Our Discussion)", a very pretty song. Red Room is an album that really grows with repeated listens and works awesome as background music.

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