BALLAH PLAYAH GNAR
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ALBUM
PICTURE
POSTER
BIO
Ballah Playah Gnar is the new duo project of Wellington dwellers Reece McNaughton (of Big Flip The Massive and West Coast Bullies) and William Sklenars. Both former jazz school students and out-of-towners (McNaughton is from Napier and Sklenars is from Taranaki) the two originally connected over half a decade ago.
"We both studied together and just seemed to end up playing in each other's bands all the time," McNaughton recalls. "We both played a few residences around Wellington, there was an awesome one at Good Luck Bar, and we got to try anything we wanted. It was loud and experimental. I think most of our playing comes from doing that every week for a good year and a half, and also a lot of busking to the drunkest people you will meet."
With McNaughton on drums and Sklenars on bass, Ballah Playah Gnar is a space in which the two can, as McNaughton puts it, "...fuse how we play our instruments with the digital production of our laptops." Working the inter-zone between live and electronic music, they find a happy and fruitful medium born of studied focus and practice. "We spend most of our time writing drafts and coming up with concepts that will challenge our physical playing," he says. "It's almost like we are digitally daring ourselves to do what we shouldn't be able to do. The writing side can go both ways. Will might come up with a drum beat. I might come up with a synth or bass line. We are both wanting to do a lot more rapping in the next album, so we are focusing on that mainly [now]. Our recording style is hit record and play. It's a very live improvised style which we find more natural."
Witnessed in full flight, the Ballah Playah Gnar sound sits somewhere between post-rock, post-hip-hop and experimental jazz, as detailed by their desire to do something different and new. "[Trying to create] sounds that we can't get with normal instruments usually pushes us to the digital side where we can then manipulate lots of different things," McNaughton muses.
On their recent debut album Welcom To The Team, their aesthetic and goals comes into sharp focus on 'Stabby Hackney', which at two minutes and forty three seconds, clocks in as the longest song on the record. Underpinned by a driving cinematic bass line, the composition lurches into life as galloping drum patterns frantically build intensity on the edges. Detailed by spaced out sfx and incidental atmospherics, it's a compelling entry point into the soundworld of one of the most exciting new bands in the capital.
Martyn Pepperell
"We both studied together and just seemed to end up playing in each other's bands all the time," McNaughton recalls. "We both played a few residences around Wellington, there was an awesome one at Good Luck Bar, and we got to try anything we wanted. It was loud and experimental. I think most of our playing comes from doing that every week for a good year and a half, and also a lot of busking to the drunkest people you will meet."
With McNaughton on drums and Sklenars on bass, Ballah Playah Gnar is a space in which the two can, as McNaughton puts it, "...fuse how we play our instruments with the digital production of our laptops." Working the inter-zone between live and electronic music, they find a happy and fruitful medium born of studied focus and practice. "We spend most of our time writing drafts and coming up with concepts that will challenge our physical playing," he says. "It's almost like we are digitally daring ourselves to do what we shouldn't be able to do. The writing side can go both ways. Will might come up with a drum beat. I might come up with a synth or bass line. We are both wanting to do a lot more rapping in the next album, so we are focusing on that mainly [now]. Our recording style is hit record and play. It's a very live improvised style which we find more natural."
Witnessed in full flight, the Ballah Playah Gnar sound sits somewhere between post-rock, post-hip-hop and experimental jazz, as detailed by their desire to do something different and new. "[Trying to create] sounds that we can't get with normal instruments usually pushes us to the digital side where we can then manipulate lots of different things," McNaughton muses.
On their recent debut album Welcom To The Team, their aesthetic and goals comes into sharp focus on 'Stabby Hackney', which at two minutes and forty three seconds, clocks in as the longest song on the record. Underpinned by a driving cinematic bass line, the composition lurches into life as galloping drum patterns frantically build intensity on the edges. Detailed by spaced out sfx and incidental atmospherics, it's a compelling entry point into the soundworld of one of the most exciting new bands in the capital.
Martyn Pepperell
