Tag: Ozomatli

Stop accepting all this nonsense and get aboard the Mamalarky.

Every early June, I’ll hit the first day of the year where it’s still light when I get to the radio station. It’s a few weeks before summer officially begins, but it always feel like the starting gun for the season. Tonight! We start out with Mhaol, who would just as easily cut you as they would kiss you, and proceed from there.

Like many Australian things, this band is somewhat recognizable yet clearly evolved in a different context. There are many different influences interleaved, from the Caribbean to the Highlands to Eastern Europe and of course, a tinge of that Oz punk.

As the name successfully implies, this outfit is a heady blend of Chicano funk and other sources. Pumping bass lines that could drain the Baltic Sea in minutes and horn stabs that could be entered as evidence in a court of law fill out the package.

Bands mashing together sounds from different musical traditions, usually throwing in some modern electronic affectation, can be hit or miss. Asian Dub Foundation has a long history of hitting it out of the park, and this is no exception.

A fluid mixture of influences and identity, with tropical flavors and delicate pop sensibilities layering up with street-tough attitude for some songs, like a leather-jacketed hoodlum holding a bouquet of roses.

The Sasha river was running dry, and the aerialist maneuvered his craft to take advantage of the fact. As they moved swiftly along the crumbling banks, exoskeletal legs easily scrabbling over the terrain in an unearthly three-limbed gait, they encountered sun-baked sections where a trickle fed a series of pools on the cracking river bottom, animals congregated around them in a temporary truce. They hadn’t seen a human since Saturday, a fact that concerned the actuary more than the dry river, and the attempted distraction of some Guatemalan gamelan techno was not working. In its steel box, the package of Peanut Butter Crunch patiently rustled and awaited its delivery.

An exuberant mix of weird rock, Latin influences, and mysterious elements, resulting in some sort of white hot fusion.