GALACTIC is a collaborative band with a unique format. It's a stable quintet that plays together with high musicianship. They've been together so long they're telepathic. But though the band hasn't had a lead singer for years, neither is it purely an instrumental group. GALACTIC is part of a diverse community of musicians, and in their own studio, with Mercurio and Ellman producing, they have the luxury of experimenting. So on their albums, they do something that's unusual in rock but not so controversial an idea in, say, hiphop: they create something that's a little like a revue, a virtual show featuring different vocalists (mostly from New Orleans) and instrumental soloists each taking their turn on stage in the GALACTIC sound universe....
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GALACTIC is a collaborative band with a unique format. It's a stable quintet that plays together with high musicianship. They've been together so long they're telepathic. But though the band hasn't had a lead singer for years, neither is it purely an instrumental group. GALACTIC is part of a diverse community of musicians, and in their own studio, with Mercurio and Ellman producing, they have the luxury of experimenting. So on their albums, they do something that's unusual in rock but not so controversial an idea in, say, hiphop: they create something that's a little like a revue, a virtual show featuring different vocalists (mostly from New Orleans) and instrumental soloists each taking their turn on stage in the GALACTIC sound universe.
Mostly the band creates new material in collaboration with its many guests, though they occasionally rework a classic. Despite the appearance of various platinum names on GALACTIC albums, they especially like to work with artists who are still underground. If you listen to CARNIVALE ELECTRICOS together with the two previous studio albums (YA-KA-MAY and FROM THE CORNER TO THE BLOCK), you'll hear the most complete cross-section of what's happening in contemporary New Orleans anywhere – all of it tight and radio-ready.
Despite the electronics and studio technology, GALACTIC's albums are very much band records. Mercurio explained the GALACTIC process, which starts out with the beat: ―The way we write music,‖ he says, ―we come up with a demo, or a basic track, and then we collectively decide how we're gonna finish it.‖ The result is a hard-grooving sequence of tight beats across a range of styles that glides from one surprise to the next.
What pulls all the diverse artists on CARNIVALE ELECTRICOS together into a coherent album is that one way or another, it's all funk. GALACTIC is, always was, and always will be a funk band. Whatever genre of music anyone in New Orleans is doing, from Mardi Gras Indians to rock bands to hardcore rappers, it's all funk at the bottom, because funk is the common musical language, the lingua franca of New Orleans music. Even zydeco can be funky -- and if you don't believe it, check out ―Voyage Ton Flag,‖ the album's evocation of Cajun Mardi Gras, in which Mamou Playboy STEVE RILEY meets up with a sampled Clifton Chenier inside the GALACTIC funk machine.
THE FILTHY SIX are the most exciting, authentic Soul Jazz outfit in the UK today and have established themselves as one of the most electric live acts around. Their soaring horns, blistering guitar and gut-wrenching Hammond are fuelled by one of the hardest grooving rhythm sections east of New York, producing a hip-shakingly powerful mixture of jazz, funk and boogaloo totally in keeping with the finest traditions of the Blue Note sound. Led by trumpeter Nick Etwell (Tom Jones, Beck, Duran Duran) this crack unit of erudite musical gunslingers have graced the bands of some of the hottest names in music including Amy Winehouse, Jack White, Jill Scott, Mumford & Sons, Dionne Warwick, Pee Wee Ellis, Ronnie Spector, Mark Ronson, David Axelrod and the James Taylor Quartet to name a few. These instrumental groove merchants fuse boundless energy and incredible musicianship to create tight, funky music that moves the mind, body and soul whilst simultaneously blowing the roof off every venue they play.
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