BADBADNOTGOOD-"Hedron" TRACK REVIEW

Thanks to a friend of mine who goes by the very epic name of Matias, I have become enamored with the Canadian trio of hip-hop loving jazz deviants called BADBADNOTGOOD. Their irreverent approach to jazz has struck a chord with me, and their innovations should leave modern jazz musicians who are still playing “Giant Steps” and “Take the Fucking A-Train” obsolete. Jazz purists be damned! BBNG is ushering in a new wave of jazz for young people who would otherwise avoid the hell out of their grandparent’s Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman records.

After their impressive debut (BBNG) and their even better follow-up (BBNG2) I was left hungering for more of what this group had to offer and I ended up spending lots of free time re-listening to their back catalog and scouring youtube for studio and live clips of the band, and now my prayers have been answered because their third album, BBNG3, will be released hopefully within the next month, and what we have to go on until then is the new track “Hedron”, and boy, is it good.

Compositionally, it’s the best thing the band has ever composed with the possible exception of BBNG2’s “DMZ” with its wonderfully hooky bassline and sparse keys that open up the song, and then spirals into an increasingly intense swirl of synths and haze before resolving back to the original bassline that leads to the song’s close. It’s really an instrumental, not so much a jazz song because there’s no improvisation to be found, but the lack of a solo doesn’t bother me at all because of how surprisingly solid the songwriting is, proving that they’ve become more adept at the art. The BBNG2 track “Rotten Decay” was an example of BBNG’s songwriting at its least satisfying (it was the same buildup and climax three times in a row) but with “Hedron”, they’ve proven that they can write an instrumental without any soloing and still blow you away.

That’s about it. BBNG3 should be out very soon and I’m very excitebike about it, probably as excited as a sloth being carried across the road in Costa Rica.