Zaba is the full-length debut album by the British alternative band Glass Animals, released in 2014. They'd previously released a couple of EPs, which generated interest in the group, and were the first group to be signed to the Wolf Tone label. Their popularity in Europe grew when they opened shows for St. Vincent, Metronomy, Yeasayer and others.
I learned of Glass Animals through my kids, who are always delighted when I like something they introduced me to enough to buy the record.
Zaba's sound is hard to pin down. It's lush, psychedelic leanings catch the attention right away, and from there it's a soundscape of percussion and cushiony pillows of layered chords and tones and bass and cooking utensils - seriously - as well as children's toys. There's also some ambient sounds recorded in a field near singer David Bayley's house so it's different for sure, but it's also very inviting and, I find, relaxing. It's something you'll want to listen to again and again, splayed naked across the couch with the lights out.
The album opens with Flip, which begins slow and seductively and builds into a groove-driven crescendo of beats and electronica. It's sparse and uncluttered. It's dark but catchy at the same time. And it's danceable (if you like to dance, which I don't, although I do catch my wife spinning around the room to this album all the time).
Bayley said the band members were worried about what their friends and family would think of this record given its unusual leanings. "We kept everything quite toned down," he said, "and then we spent six or seven months experimenting, trying to find out what to do on the record, and after we finished those tracks, we had a much better idea of what we needed to do and how we wanted to sound." In the end, their friends and families liked what they heard.
The record's executive producer, Paul Epworth, is responsible for some of the more unorthodox approaches employed. For the vocal track on Gooey he had Bayley record his vocals holding a pineapple named Sasha Fierce, and the final chorus was recorded in eight different impressions including "an old woman, a drunk crack addict a terrible impression of James Brown" to replicate the sound of a choir, albeit a very strange one.
Glass Animals hail from, Oxford, England, and aside from Bayley also features his childhood friends Joe Seaward, Ed Irwin-Singer and Drew MacFarlane. But it's Bayley's baby. He wrote and produced all three Glass Animals albums.
Following Zaba, the band released How to Be a Human Being, which won some awards including UK Album of the Year. Their third effort, Dreamland, followed that.
I saw the band perform at Massey Hall, in Toronto, in 2017. It was an excellent show, not anything like what I was expecting, which was something - I dunno - laid back, maybe. But instead of that the band rocked, moving all over the stage with an energy I hadn't associated with the music. At one point, Bayley left the stage and ran around the concert hall, eventually ending up standing right in front of me and singing, it seemed, directly to me. I left the concert with much more of an appreciation for the band and their music. They work for it, and they can pull it off live. And that's a biggie, something that's very important to Bayley. "We don't use tapes," he said, and related how the band will strip a song down to its essentials, if necessary, to play it live rather than incorporating pre-recorded tapes. I love that!
I think I was the oldest guy at the show. By far.
The band delayed the release of their third LP, Dreamland, in order to "keep focus on the Black Lives Matter movement and the discussions taking place around racism and police brutality around the world." It was eventually released in August, 2020. In an interview with Atwood Magazine, Bayley said, "I guess the goal with this record was to make something that was incredibly honest and incredibly us."
Zaba entered the UK album chart at number two. It's a very good record from a very interesting band.
I have a first pressing, which sounds excellent. The cover is well-produced, too, and pleasure to hold and look at while listening to the record.
Zaba is the full-length debut album by the British alternative band Glass Animals, released in 2014. They'd previously released a couple of EPs, which generated interest in the group, and were the first group to be signed to the Wolf Tone label. Their popularity in Europe grew when they opened shows for St. Vincent, Metronomy, Yeasayer and others.
I learned of Glass Animals through my kids, who are always delighted when I like something they introduced me to enough to buy the record.
Zaba's sound is hard to pin down. It's lush, psychedelic leanings catch the attention right away, and from there it's a soundscape of percussion and cushiony pillows of layered chords and tones and bass and cooking utensils - seriously - as well as children's toys. There's also some ambient sounds recorded in a field near singer David Bayley's house so it's different for sure, but it's also very inviting and, I find, relaxing. It's something you'll want to listen to again and again, splayed naked across the couch with the lights out.
The album opens with Flip, which begins slow and seductively and builds into a groove-driven crescendo of beats and electronica. It's sparse and uncluttered. It's dark but catchy at the same time. And it's danceable (if you like to dance, which I don't, although I do catch my wife spinning around the room to this album all the time).
Bayley said the band members were worried about what their friends and family would think of this record given its unusual leanings. "We kept everything quite toned down," he said, "and then we spent six or seven months experimenting, trying to find out what to do on the record, and after we finished those tracks, we had a much better idea of what we needed to do and how we wanted to sound." In the end, their friends and families liked what they heard.
The record's executive producer, Paul Epworth, is responsible for some of the more unorthodox approaches employed. For the vocal track on Gooey he had Bayley record his vocals holding a pineapple named Sasha Fierce, and the final chorus was recorded in eight different impressions including "an old woman, a drunk crack addict a terrible impression of James Brown" to replicate the sound of a choir, albeit a very strange one.
Glass Animals hail from, Oxford, England, and aside from Bayley also features his childhood friends Joe Seaward, Ed Irwin-Singer and Drew MacFarlane. But it's Bayley's baby. He wrote and produced all three Glass Animals albums.
Following Zaba, the band released How to Be a Human Being, which won some awards including UK Album of the Year. Their third effort, Dreamland, followed that.
I saw the band perform at Massey Hall, in Toronto, in 2017. It was an excellent show, not anything like what I was expecting, which was something - I dunno - laid back, maybe. But instead of that the band rocked, moving all over the stage with an energy I hadn't associated with the music. At one point, Bayley left the stage and ran around the concert hall, eventually ending up standing right in front of me and singing, it seemed, directly to me. I left the concert with much more of an appreciation for the band and their music. They work for it, and they can pull it off live. And that's a biggie, something that's very important to Bayley. "We don't use tapes," he said, and related how the band will strip a song down to its essentials, if necessary, to play it live rather than incorporating pre-recorded tapes. I love that!
I think I was the oldest guy at the show. By far.
The band delayed the release of their third LP, Dreamland, in order to "keep focus on the Black Lives Matter movement and the discussions taking place around racism and police brutality around the world." It was eventually released in August, 2020. In an interview with Atwood Magazine, Bayley said, "I guess the goal with this record was to make something that was incredibly honest and incredibly us."
Zaba entered the UK album chart at number two. It's a very good record from a very interesting band.
I have a first pressing, which sounds excellent. The cover is well-produced, too, and pleasure to hold and look at while listening to the record.
BONUS TRACK
Glass Animals singer and frontman Dave Bayley was studying for a medical degree in London when the band started to take off. He switched to neuroscience and finished his degree, and although he sings for a living now he's still very much interested in brains and human nature.
“I spent three or four years trying to see the world from other people’s perspectives,” he said. “But it’s impossible. That’s why mental illness is so awful.” While on the road, Bayley met hundreds of strangers, some of whom told him their deepest secrets, many of which he secretly recorded and used as inspiration for the band's third album, Dreamland. “There are stories on the surface of these songs,” he says, “but you also have to start thinking about how these people must feel.”
Neurology seems to haunt Bayley to a degree. Two years ago, drummer Joe Seaward suffered a skull fracture in a cycling accident in Dublin, and had to undergo neurosurgery. He’s since made a full recovery, but it was hard for Bayley to be as optimistic as some of Seaward’s friends and family were. Because of his education he knew how serious his bandmate’s injuries were. “I didn’t know if Joe was going to survive,” he recalled.
There have been other briushes the workings of the human brain, too. Oner childhood friend of Bayley's, who he described as his best friend when he was a kid but who he hasn't seen in years, was caught trying to bring a gun into a local school. “It’s weird, we were so close," he said. "And it’s hard to believe someone you knew that well could move so far from who they used to be. But at that age you’re like a sponge, and dark stuff, like fake news, gets in. You absorb it.”
With Seaward now fully recovered, Glass Animals had just set out on a tour to promote Dreamland when the coronavirus pandemic took hold. They were backstage at a gig in LA where a nervous manager told them the gig they'd just finished playing would be their last show for some time. “It was mad,” Bayley says. “We threw everything in the back of a truck. I think it’s in Nashville now.”
Glass Animals singer and frontman Dave Bayley was studying for a medical degree in London when the band started to take off. He switched to neuroscience and finished his degree, and although he sings for a living now he's still very much interested in brains and human nature.
“I spent three or four years trying to see the world from other people’s perspectives,” he said. “But it’s impossible. That’s why mental illness is so awful.” While on the road, Bayley met hundreds of strangers, some of whom told him their deepest secrets, many of which he secretly recorded and used as inspiration for the band's third album, Dreamland. “There are stories on the surface of these songs,” he says, “but you also have to start thinking about how these people must feel.”
Neurology seems to haunt Bayley to a degree. Two years ago, drummer Joe Seaward suffered a skull fracture in a cycling accident in Dublin, and had to undergo neurosurgery. He’s since made a full recovery, but it was hard for Bayley to be as optimistic as some of Seaward’s friends and family were. Because of his education he knew how serious his bandmate’s injuries were. “I didn’t know if Joe was going to survive,” he recalled.
There have been other briushes the workings of the human brain, too. Oner childhood friend of Bayley's, who he described as his best friend when he was a kid but who he hasn't seen in years, was caught trying to bring a gun into a local school. “It’s weird, we were so close," he said. "And it’s hard to believe someone you knew that well could move so far from who they used to be. But at that age you’re like a sponge, and dark stuff, like fake news, gets in. You absorb it.”
With Seaward now fully recovered, Glass Animals had just set out on a tour to promote Dreamland when the coronavirus pandemic took hold. They were backstage at a gig in LA where a nervous manager told them the gig they'd just finished playing would be their last show for some time. “It was mad,” Bayley says. “We threw everything in the back of a truck. I think it’s in Nashville now.”
