The Hop
Berlin Serengeti
Radio Citizen, 2006
This album came out Tuesday so (for once) I’m actually timely in a way that exists outside of my head! This is one of the many things that I picked up on my trip to California (big shouts to DJ Cocoe). I first listened to it in my big american “Charger” rental car at night (yay, driving with music!) as I drove four people home from the wedding welcome dinner we had just attended. As you’ll hear, this song is perfect for night driving and I got to act cool and nonchalant as if I had picked the song on purpose as I answered my friend saying “Ok, who’s this? I really like their sound” from the backseat.
You can read more on his bio page on the Ubiquity site but Radio Citizen is an alias of Niko Schabel who is from Berlin. He produced the track and the vocals are by a woman named Bajka who was “born in an Indian temple and grew up in Afghanistan, Nepal, Pakistan and on a catamaran in South Africa.” Gotta love bio writers…can you even live on a catamaran?
I really the love the texture of the keyboard sound and my favorite part is the riff that starts at 2:31 and eventually ends the song. It’s behind the beat in that perfect way that sort of slows time down for a second.
Bajka is featured on four of five songs; the rest are instrumental and fall somewhere between jazz and a movie score - all very night-timey.
>> songs are available for two weeks [6.8 MB]
