BadBadNotGood On The Art Of Looking Back Without Stopping

Canadian band BadBadNotGood made their name by refusing to sit neatly inside any genre.

They slip between hip hop and jazz in a way that feels less like fusion and more like instinct. Their latest album, their first with XL Recordings, pulls things back inwards. Instead of chasing new textures, they return to something more foundational: instrumental music, their influences, and the history that shaped them in the first place.

The band formed in 2010 at Humber College in Toronto, where Alexander Sowinski, Chester Hansen, and Leland Whitty met through the jazz programme. They quickly veered away from the usual standards, pulling from hip hop and contemporary sounds instead, building a style rooted in Black American music but filtered through their own sensibility.

By Talk Memory, that curiosity had shifted into something more reflective, almost like a direct conversation with the artists who influenced them.

 

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A big part of the record is about trying to capture what they already do live: improvisation that feels loose, reactive, and alive.

For them, songs are never really finished, just paused in different states. After years of touring, they stepped back and changed how they worked. Instead of writing fast and shaping things on the road, they slowed the whole process down, let ideas sit, and only recorded once everything had settled. Ironically, the improvisation became more intentional because of it.

The result feels less about showing off and more about atmosphere and feeling. It still moves between cinematic calm and more distorted, unpredictable moments, but there is a stronger sense of space and patience.

Recording in analogue studios helped that too, keeping things grounded and present, without leaning on digital reference points.

There is also a noticeable shift toward the collective.

Even with guests like Arthur Verocai, the focus is on the group dynamic rather than individual spotlight. It circles back to early jazz ideas where the whole point was interplay, not ego. The music feels like a conversation happening in real time, sometimes messy, but always shared.

Talk Memory is also part of a wider project that extends beyond the album itself, including zines and printed material inspired by something like the Whole Earth Catalog. It maps out their influences, collaborators, and ideas more like an archive than a rollout. Contributions come from artists like Laraaji, Terrace Martin, Brandee Younger, and Karriem Riggins, with mixing by Russell Elevado.

At its core, the album treats music as something communal and constantly shifting. Less product, more process. Like a live jazz introduction where every player gets their moment, BadBadNotGood turn that spirit into a full record built on shared energy rather than individual ego.

What’s left is a record that feels less performed than discovered in real time.