Baby Zionov Releases New Single ‘Froggy Forest Raceway’ đ¸
Baby Zionov Releases New Single ‘Froggy Forest Raceway’ đ¸
June 12th, 2025
Baby Zionov is the musical project of Aaliyah Zionov (she/her), a musician and songwriter based in TÄmaki Makaurau.
An icon of Aotearoaâs underground electronica scene Baby Zionovâs music is deeply inspired by the mid-2000s Internet and blurs the lines between the worlds of pop, dance, and the avant-garde. Since her breakout 2018 collaboration with Ayesha Erotica, Baby Zionov has gone on to support Charli XCX and perform at The Others Way, Newtown Festival and Cross Street Music Festival. Baby Zionovâs critically acclaimed 2022 debut album Henrietta was nominated for Album Of The Year in at Student Radio Network Awards, where she was also nominated for Best Solo Act. Baby Zionov is active in her community, curating and producing the Loud & Proud Festival as well as remixing tracks for Memory Foam, deepState and Amamelia.
Following her high tempo return with ‘Cirrus Homebound’, Baby Zionov has shared the new single ‘Froggy Forest Raceway’ (from her forthcoming album, due end of 2025) and announced a special release show at 605 Morningside with support from Jackaltheblackal and the mysterious Donk Dobbo.
‘Froggy Forest Raceway’ is a trip through a muggy but lively rainforest swarming with strange plants, silly little bugs and frogs. Baby Ziononv collages bouncing kicks, funky basslines, pixelated flutes and animalist percussion.
“Historically, my approach to music has been to basically just mess around until something cool happens,” says Zionov. “Lately Iâve been trying to think more visually and evoke a sense of place and atmosphere. Itâs not always easy to do that while still keeping your music danceable, and for inspiration I ended up looking to racing game music, which always has to be very exciting and energetic while also expressing the specific vibe of the level/racecourse.”
“The basic chords and flute melody on their own have this kind of floating, mystical feeling, but the ‘rainforest’ concept only started coming together when I was playing around with samples of insect sounds to use as percussion, which interlocked with the Jersey club beat in cute and interesting ways.”
“It was a fun challenge to try and create the image of something so organic using the vocabulary of dance music â the Korg M1 piano twinkling like rain falling into a pond, the 303 acid sound buzzing like a fly, the 808 bass hitting like a sudden clap of thunder. I donât usually work in such a literal or representational way, but Iâm really happy with how it turned out.”
At the halfway mark, ‘Froggy Forest Raceway’ swerves into strange new territory, a shift that Zionov explains as “sort of the ‘I probably shouldnât have eaten that weird looking mushroom‘ moment. Suddenly the forest is starting to feel a bit endless and the proportions are all off and everything has a weird purple tint to it and you reckon one of the frogs is giving you the evil eye, but youâre oddly calm about it. I made that section last because itâs essentially a downtempo chillout remix of the rest of the song. The idea of hiding a remix inside the song itself really tickles me.”
With ‘Froggy Forest Raceway’ out now Zionov hopes that “it will imbue listeners with both the urge to dance with a childlike sense of wonder!”
Check out all things Baby Zionov below:
Photo Credit: Frances Carter