Bakullama, namely Messrs Rick Whitehurst and Kalvin Foster, alongside Bill Noland who plays bass guitar on the second track, return with their intriguing Broken Hearts & Troubled Minds, which you can see and hear at their Bandcamp page, https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/album/new-2025-broken-hearts-troubled-minds

As with its predecessor, Sleepers, the new work should not be approached with a preset mind about how progressive experimental music should sound. It should be approached without any preconditions whatsoever, and within this box are some delightful tricks and treats. The cover, incidentally, is wonderful, a genuine work of art (rock).

So, eight tracks, plus a bonus which I will be playing on my Progzilla Radio show of 15th March.

We start with a title I relate to immediately, I Live in the Country. I reside in West Wales, where men are men, sheep are sheep, and jolly proud of their status too. I understand that Walla Walla, which is a city in Washington State, and from whence our heroes hail, could not be described as an urban metropolis, either. The voice is not at all comforting against a spartan, minimalist set of notes and percussion, the most prominent noise coming from Whitehurst’s Velveeta sax parping disconsolate notes. This track could best be described as disturbingly sleepy, rather like our homes.

I Miss Her Sister’s Right Arm is the first track here which must qualify for consideration in our annual “title of the year” award on the website. Quite what the meaning of all this is, I leave to far more qualified head doctors than I, but what we have is something that fans of Zappa will lap up, wildly experimental, but drawing you into this world where you never feel wholly comfortable, the bass melody of Noland hypnotic, whirring keys, crunching riffs, and the voice sounding like Belew on Mogadon telling us his sister’s right arm is long gone.. Fascinating, really.

I love the next track, another candidate for “title of 2025”, Chicks Dig Venus (Spacerock, Not So Much). It is embedded below for you, over six minutes of jazz improvisation, the discourse between the captain and crew fascinating amongst the chords emerging from the speaker, some fine guitars work throughout, insistent piano in the void, a disaster impending, the drums urgent at times. If you enjoy this, I guarantee that the entire album is for you.

You and Your Troubled Mind could be a commentary on virtually every household row I have seen and heard. It is not a pleasant listen, and is not meant to be, a sort of slowed down commentary on a seriously wrong internal situation, sad, the music suitably spartan, the guitar brilliantly ghostly and influenced by Fripp’s more meditative moments, the keys at the end melodramatic.

Walkin’ Around All Day is embedded below. The guitar symphonies are very effective, and very heavy at times, the subject walks around in a bit of a daze with his broken heart, and it takes me back to heartfelt teenage moments, the emotions whirling around the intensity of the axe.

Warm Yellow Sun should be more uplifting fare from the title, and the opening bars demonstrate this, as pastoral as the album gets, I like the piano working against the chords, the voice giving us the warmth of the sun.

Really Worth It? asks a question. Instantly more urgent, some delicate guitar work against the synth brass, sax, alongside the Louis Armstrong voice recreating I think those smoky bars of New Orleans.

The last regular track on the album is You Missed a Spot, a regular occurrence in the Lazland household when yours truly does the cleaning. It is a slab of modern jazz-infused psych, notes, emotions, chords, instruments, female sexual pleasure thrown together to make for a deeply satisfying whole without being able to quite pinpoint how, and therein, of course, lies its genius.

The bonus track we close with is the instrumental Venus, over six minutes of experimental jazz pleasure, layered sounds, with urgent guitar coming at you, clever skins work. It is embedded below.

Broken Hearts & Troubled Minds is not the sort of album one will play to one’s parents when they ask you what you have been spending your money and time on these past few days as they tuck into their roast lamb. It is at the extreme end of the experimental arm of progressive music, and for those who love this, highly recommended.