Pull out your joysticks and boot up your favourite vintage video game because Montreal’s jazzified electro geek duo, Ping Pong Go, have a new album. Smash Combat is the follow-up/comeback to Pierre-Emmanuel Beaudoin and Vincent Gagnon’s debut from four years back and is again filled with gamer jazz gems that make you feel like you’re playing a thrill ride 2D side scroller. Actually, the opener “Sam Bozen” feels a bit adult contemporary piano jazz, kind of Gogo Penguin vibes, until it turns into a fast-paced ’80s electro jazz escapade. I feel like I’m experiencing the rainbow bridge level in Super Mario Kart all over again.
As much as I tried, I couldn’t really mesh with the next track, “Ouugh,” though, as the cat meow synths just didn’t do it for me. It might be because I have cats and hear meows all day. I feel like a bit of a joke track, especially with the layering of random emulator samples. “Shrala (feat. Dolphin Hyperspace)” is something special, featuring the legendary electro jazz LA duo on insane slap bass and a spirited sax solo. The drumming on this track is absolutely bonkers. Smash Combat also features some Quebecois starlings on backing effects vocals and guitar with Thierry Larose, Lou-Adriane Cassidy, Lysandre Ménard, and Ariane Roy, to name a few
“Okinawa” is a much slower and atmospheric track than “Shrala,” but damn does it hit. The synths and drum machine pave the way for a hallucinogenic journey. I think the duo is utilizing vocoder, too, but who knows? I’m not a synth doctor. The title track is like the Bowser dungeon level on speed, mixed with some “Flight of the Bumblebees.” I just shake my head in awe. Cedric Martel’s bass line will give me nightmares, but Beaudoin’s drumming is the real icing on the jazzy cake. Gagnon is also absolutely destroying is synth lines. It’s just madness. Maybe the closest we will get to a “heavy” track from Ping Pong Go procedes with “Pharaon”
Ping Pong Go has made something truly maddening and grooving with Smash Combat.
