Baba Ali

Purveyors of the brilliantly unexpected

The duo marry disco and post-punk stylings in glorious harmony on their disorienting, ambitious second album

On transatlantic duo Baba Ali’s 2020 debut Memorial Device you got a vague sense of the Anglo-American grey zone that David Bowie and Iggy Pop inhabited when they were in Château d’Hérouville recording The Idiot, with the insidious Anglo-glam spectacle colliding head-on with the harsh American wasteland. 

On Laugh Like a Bomb, Baba Ali return to intersect the alternative electronic sounds of London and New York in a far-reaching and deceptively deep second album. 

Lead single ‘Burn Me Out’ is emblematic of Baba Ali’s unique sound, harnessing jazzy synths that are scratched through by edgy vocals that perfectly capture our mundane cognitive dissonance in a few bars of sound and evoke the distinct feeling of a mandatory work-life balance webinar you’re having to consume after hours. The LP blossoms, however, when there’s a full embrace of the two cities’ folie à deux, with ‘Anesthesia, Beverly Hills’, ‘A Circle’, and ‘Bankrupt Funk’ all despondent, dynamic and jiving fuckers that really strike a nerve.

Whereas Bowie and Pop found union nightclubbing in the decadent wreckage of dilapidated post-war west Berlin, Baba Ali instead find it zooming through these manic late-capitalist high-finance super-cities. A trashed disco ball of a record that is both the come-up and the come-down.

After American musician Baba Doherty met British guitarist Nik Balchin in London, where the former had relocated to immerse himself in the music scene across the pond, the duo’s combined love of various genres resulted in a perfect musical pairing: Baba Ali. 

In 2021, the duo collaborated with LCD Soundsystem/Hot Chip alumni Al Doyle on their debut record, Memory Device. Although Baba Ali’s sound bears the influence of such mid-2000s indie electronica outfits, they also pull inspiration from classic hip-hop, funk, neo-soul and alt-rock artists, resulting in a unique amalgamation that feels timeless.

This is demonstrated best in their new record, Laugh Like A Bomb, which they produced themselves. At its core, their sophomore album is perfect for dancing, weaving pounding beats and addictive synths with fuzzy guitars. You can imagine yourself dancing to tracks from Laugh Like A Bomb in an ever-so-slightly dingy underground club. However, Baba Ali aren’t just concerned with making atmospheric indie floor fillers. Doherty throws something darker into the mix – incorporating uneasy lyrics communicating a need for escape, and the anxiety of living in a foreign country, explaining in a press release that living away from home “intensified this sense of vulnerability”. 

Lines such as “hold my head down under water, I won’t resist” stand out on the opening track, ‘Hold My Head’, a powerful beginning to the record, which features bombastic rhythms that make for the perfect accompaniment to Doherty’s rich voice. However, Baba Ali kicks things into an even higher gear with ‘Burn Me Out’, which features Sink Ya Teeth’s Maria Uzor. A scuzzy guitar pummels in the background as they sing the title together, with swirling synths rising into the soundscape over the top of a motorik beat. It’s undoubtedly a highlight of the record, showing Baba Ali at their absolute best. 

Twinkling, cosmic synths feature prominently on ‘Gold Rush!’, which retains a mellow pace, although the track maintains buoyancy through yet another piercing beat. In fact, each track is underpinned with a ferocious beat that jolts the listener out of complete complacency.

However, that’s not to say that Laugh Like A Bomb doesn’t have moments where it begins to falter. Although the use of repetitive lyrics and cyclical rhythms certainly works for some songs, others tire quickly due to a rather predictable sense of direction. On ‘I’m Bored’, Doherty repeats, “I’m bored out of my mind” over and over, emphasising his malaise. Yet, due to similarly repetitive instrumentals, the track teeters on becoming boring, too. 

Luckily, the album picks up its pace with ‘Anesthesia, Beverly Hills’, which features jolting guitars and synths that seem to fly across the track. Moreover, the title track is another highlight, which contains further ambiguously dark lyrics such as “knives up, knives in, let’s see who wins” and “I’m the living dead”. 

The thumping ‘Make U Feel’ and funk-inspired ‘A Circle’ are certain crowd-pleasers. The songs are great examples of Baba Ali’s ability to make expansive tracks without falling into over-blown territory. Sadly, the same can’t be said for the album as a whole. It often feels drawn out; not enough variety is provided in each track, and they sometimes feel as though they are melding into one. Although each song is good on its own – some are even incredible – as one cohesive piece, Laugh Like A Bomb feels like it’s missing something, or maybe it’s got too much of one thing. 

Still, if you’re enjoying the current wave of electro-indie acts, such as Working Men’s Club, PVA, Jockstrap and Acid Klaus, you’ll certainly find a place in your record collection for Baba Ali, whose second album is a bold foray into the unknown, where you’ll find yourself dancing and reflecting on life, all at the same time.

Baba Ali return with the follow-up to their 2020 debut Memory Device having doubled down on the funk, frenzy and paranoia. The duo took up residency at LCD Soundsystem’s Al Doyle’s studio, the brand-new record was created in a three-week frenzy, produced by the band in collaboration with Ross Orton.

The ultimate result of the three-week studio visit is Laugh Like A Bomb, a record which takes the core ingredients from Memory Device and hones them into a distilled concentration of electronic punk. The album’s title is borrowed from 20th Century radical art manifesto BLAST! that Baba had encountered on tour: the energy and sentiment from BLAST! Is radical and reformist – the manifesto-like zine was a pre-WW1 document that helped shape British modern art. This sentiment and energy isn’t Baba Ali’s in title alone, the avant-garde nature of the document is deep within the bones of the new album.

‘Hold My Head’ and lead single ‘Burn Me Out’ are markers in the sand for the duo, electronic beats and wandering synths combine with Ali’s punky vocals to create something pretty unique: this is fresh and interesting already, and the duo’s growth from album one is apparent from the outset. The record has a very ‘late night’ feel to it, the kind of album that would be at home in an underground European club, or a late-night coffee shop.

Laugh Like A Bomb comes into its own in the final third of the record, however. ‘A Circle’ is a supremely catchy number with all the sensibilities of a cut that would be at home on the 6 Music A list, but the layered synths, beats and harmonies elevate the cut to brand new heights. Off beat pauses and breaks with snappy drums make the track a brainworm that nestles itself into your frontal loeb for weeks at a time.

The album peaks with ‘Bankrupt Frank’, another stuttering off beat number that is dynamic and interesting, with a distinct flavour of Working Mens Club about it: Orton’s fingerprints are all over this record to great effect. The cut builds to an electronic reverie, like experiencing a frenetic and funky come-up behind dark shades in a happening night spot, before fading out.

Laugh Like A Bomb is a distinct progression from Baba Ali’s debut, with the duo showing noise and maturity throughout the new record to fantastic effect. The electro-punk transcends genres and pushes boundaries with great results.

There’s a little of the previous few years’ zeitgeist to Baba Ali’s second album. It’s there in the title, ‘Laugh Like A Bomb’; a phrase full of uneasiness, designed to have us questioning our own split-second reactions. It’s also there in the track titles - ‘Bankrupt Funk’ and ‘I’m Bored’ evoking the monotonous desperation of that period best not talked about before one even need press play. The music too, with its bleak sonic palette and treadmill-like repetition, hints at an attempt to evade a slog, gives an impression of being caught in a human-scale hamster wheel, around and around go the ‘80s-like synths while Baba’s vocals meander on monologues. The decision to self-produce (2020 debut ‘Memory Device’ was recorded with Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem’s Al Doyle) gives it a harder edge; where the likes of ‘Black Wagon’ wielded a softness alongside its propulsive dance, here the bubbling ‘Burn Me Out’ and the title track are far more uncompromising. It can lead to spots of nothingness - ‘Gold Rush!’ and ‘Lip Service’ feel largely forgettable - but it’s the urgency of ‘A Circle’ where ‘Laugh Like A Bomb’ finds its gut-punch, its vocals conveying genuine emotion.

Baba Ali double down with more beats, more band, more bravado on Laugh Like A Bomb