by Matt Brockett
Garaj Mahal
w00t
When you get players of this caliber together, more often than not the resulting music can end up trading technical virtuosity for listenability, but that is most definitely not the case with the dance-inducing grooves of Garaj Mahal. This is music that attracts both musicians and dancefloor denizens -- complex and inventive at its core, with a “shut up and listen” booty-moving exterior. It’s funk fusion for the people, not just the jazz heads.
The elastic “Semos” starts things off with the band undulating, drifting far away from each other and going in their own directions, and just when one wonders exactly what he's listening to, they fly into an unbelievably tight groove. They do this several times before the nearly ten-minute song ends, with each new journey covering even more adventurous ground than the last. Eric Levy’s funky ass keys kick off “Hotel” and the funk just gets dirtier from there, with Kai Eckhardt’s “so thick you can sink your teeth into em” bass grooves laying the foundation. The prog-fusion of “Pundit-Ji” sounds akin to some of Frank Zappa’s most impressive forays into the sadly underappreciated genre, with Fareed Haque’s soaring leads and the unique tones of his Moog guitar. He even switches over to acoustic briefly during the song, to change the sound up and let Levy tear it up on the synths for awhile.
“7 Cows Jumping Over The Moon” explores more of the free jazz side of the Garaj, with the occasional funky side trip, and features some of the album’s only vocals, mostly scatting and chanting. The dreamy “Corner Peace,” with Haque’s mood-setting sitar work and the rich, full tone of Eckhardt’s bass has something of a 1990s Flecktones feel to it at times. The klezmer beginning of “Ishmael and Isaac” morphs several times over, with psychedelic sitar grooves, soaring synths and even a few brief moments flirting with darker sounds. Some rather realistic sound effects on “Uptown Tipitinas” give a clue into possibilities for the band’s favorite extracurricular activity, and musically it’s just a pretty chill, slowly bouncing groove. The closing “Jamie’s Jam,” dedicated to Zilla’s Jamie Janover takes awhile to get off the ground, but it’s well worth the wait to hear the diverse peaks and pockets it builds into one after another.