Word: funke
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...seen the Dave Matthews band on the road and wondered who the opening act was, then Bela Fleck and the Flecktones' new album is worth a listen. Spanning nine years, the album features highlights from the band's eight previous releases. The Flecktones fuse jazz, funk and bluegrass into an eclectic mix of musical virtuosity that escapes the confines of any genre, using sounds ignored in mainstream rock, including Bela Fleck's Grammy-winning banjo skills and Future Man's synthaxe drumitar, a sort of percussion guitar that changes from rhythm to lead. Victor Wooten, arguably the best bass player...
...sounds a little thin and is more exciting as an artistic maneuver on Beck's part than as a long-term fixture in a CD-changer. It's the most straightforward (and final) track, in fact, that will probably become Midnite Vulture's best-remembered track. "Debra" is a funk-love send-up; its proto-cheesy sound is so robust that all irony melts away. It's got joy, like the joy Beck had when he was so suddenly confident of "Where It [was] At." The rest of the album approaches the clarity of "Debra," as if Beck is trying...
Perhaps the most listenable of Beck's rock-funk-bluegrass-soul-country-rap-electronica-polka menageries, the new Midnite Vultures adds soulful guitar licks, raging horns and many, many funk-inspired hooks to the usual mix of winsome melodies, carefully orchestrated electronic honking and bizarre lyrics produced by the world's hippest white guy. Played in its entirety last Sunday night on WFNX 101.7 FM, the album goes on sale...
...clear funk influence pervades the disc; despite layers and layers of noise, the larger portions of tracks such as "Milk and Honey" and the high-energy first single "Sexx Laws" remain sparse, highlighting the intertwining riffs which pop from guitar to bass to trumpet to sax and back. "Sexx Laws" and its driving horns might come straight from the James Brown songbook; other tunes could back up gangsta rap (though it's unlikely Method Man would tolerate this couplet, from "Hollywood Freaks": "We drop lobotomy beats/Evaporated meats"). The fantastically mellow "Debra" even features an impassioned falsetto vocal delivered...
What's the difference between recording music in the studio and playing it live? According to Cibo Matto lead singer Miho Hatori, it's like "mama and dad." The funk-inducing, sweet-sounding Japanese American band from New York City is coming to Boston next Thursday, Nov. 18, opening for Live. Recently we talked to Hatori about the band, their ongoing tour and why she calls Cibo Matto the United Colors of Benetton band...