Bombay 1 "The Identity Thing" (CD)

A little village in the austrian alps, on the shore of a picturesque lake, surrounded by high mountains in the middle of a nature reserve, was the birthplace and first home to the musical inspiration of bombay 1 aka "the identity thing".

it was summer, a very rainy summer, in which clouds moved more sluggishly across the valley and hung lower over it than they usually do, while the rain beat down rather harder than any other year. it was this special atmosphere, the valley, the village, the lake and the sound of freshly washed nature that gave the unique and special environment, the backdrop as it were, which inspired bombay 1 to write their debut album "the identity thing". now eerie, now dreamy, the mood gave the sound pictures composed in the valley their particular character. singer and songwriter stoya wove the rain, the mist, the birds and the sound of footsteps in the wood into a close-knit texture of sounds and lyrics; gathered into worlds waiting to be discovered by the attentive listener.

duesseldorf: we are in the bombay1 studio, watching its musician-in-chief, pyrolator. this is a place witch combines the stress and strain of city life with the tension and thrill of a self-contained, very quiet, utterly concentrated area. nothing is seen but the flickering of the computer leds; it makes sense to work here at night, locking oneself away from the day - capturing the contrasts.

contrasts and mixed emotions - inspiration for bombay1 always comes from places distinguished by some special combination; nicely placed acoustic guitars and menacing strings, heavy dope beats and luscious harmonies coming together to hang a filmic tapestry of sound. an album buoyed up by beautiful melancholy, never sinking into sombre sorrow but confidently treading the line between two worlds. dreamlike sure-footedness finds each new melody which will lodge in the listener's memory. this is an album which can best be described as a collage, in the sense of merging disparate elements, multi-layered structure and different dimensions of hearing: a refreshingly bold attempt to weld together these two parallel universes, weaving them into one another, making the whole more than the sum of the parts, recalling the roots and at the same time being true to today.

pyrolator, the workaholic and tireless sound artist, can look back on over 150 records as musician or producer including bands like kreidler, a certain frank, to rococo rot and oval ; he and the inspired stoya - who has worked with such different people as andy gill gang of 4 , edwyn collins and whirlpool productions - succeed in bringing together apparent opposites into a new, amazing whole.

enthusiastic at the results from bombay1's sound laboratory, one of the best-regarded and most influential english musicians and producers, howie b., has contributed a hypnotic and idiosyncratically grooving remix to their first single "q".
anyway, it was summer, it was raining, and the clouds hung lower than usual...


Released on Groenland, now availible in our mailorder.