Galactic - Ruckus (2003)

On their fourth studio album proper - Vintage Reserve was a best-of, and We Love 'Em Tonight was a live offering - Galactic wholeheartedly move not so much away from their past as a bad-ass New Orleans jazz & roll concern, as they move toward another of its traditions: Voodoo funk. There is a twist though. Not merely content to grasp the Mardi Gras Indians or Dr. John esthetics, Galactic points firmly toward the technological present with their primordial groove machine music. Drummer Stanton Moore uses as many loops as he does organic drums, bass, bass, and more bass is the order of the day, and strange keyboard sounds come bubbling under like some lost Lee Perry session gone digital. Does that make this a techno or an electronica record? C'mon. Ruckus is a spooky ride to the other side of midnight. The party is either gonna break out or break up; it exists on the edge of that fine distinction, that moment in time when anything is possible. And possibility is what Ruckus is all about: simmering organ grooves encounter striated acoustic and electric guitars under a series of syncopated rhythms by Moore on "Bongo Joe." Jagged synth lines by Richard Vogel meet ragged-then-overdriven guitars from Jeffrey Raines on "The Moil," and monstrous tom tom loops collide with basslines and keyboard riffs before Raines comes in on the acoustic bottleneck to smooth out the off-kilter funk on "Kid Kenner." This is music as the deconstruction of a sonic palette, as the deconstruction, death, and rebirth of a band. And, like Medeski, Martin and Wood before them, Galactic is all the better for its brave new world direction. Ruckus is no less a roots album than Coolin' Off was. But perhaps it is more so because in order to use all this gear and create the kind of ass-burning grooves the band comes up with, there is only one place to go to find the source: rhythm itself (if you need further evidence check out "The Beast," and let it mess your head and backbone up). Highly recommended.