Album: Peaceblaster
Artist: Sound Tribe Sector 9
Label: 1320 Records
Release date: Tuesday, July 8
When a musician creates music, it is simply a part of his or her life. Beyond the stage and recordings, musicians are people who put energy into plenty of other thoughts and deeds. Peaceblaster the latest album from Sound Tribe Sector 9 and exemplifies this concept in a curiously unique way.
It’s no surprise. The Athens, Ga.-based quintet (although they claim Santa Cruz nowadays) has always been comfortable stirring up the fruit flies that land on the rotting apple of today’s music industry. In the past, it has mainly done so by creating intelligent and danceable sounds, which never make it to corporate radio, and accruing most of its fan base through brain-busting live performances.
But this time is different.
Available as of Tuesday, the band’s fourth studio release just happens to be the sonic arm of a greater “Peaceblaster movement.” STS9 recently founded peaceblaster.com, a site on which the band describes Peaceblaster as “a database of links, organizations, documentaries, books and ideas geared toward raising awareness and creating a platform to organize, participate in and debate the pressing issues of our day.” The organizations include charities started by STS9 that benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina, the people of Darfur and of Haiti.
Musically, this instrumental album is a long drive from the band’s debut, Interplanetary Escape Vehicle . But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of funk lurking around the corners of Peaceblaster ‘s streets. The album maintains the same brand of organic electronica that has long blended psychedelia, hip-hop, jazz and other genres. Unlike 2005’s hailed Artifact , which many consider the group’s best effort, this album gets going right off the bat and brings a definitively higher degree of energy.
Peaceblaster flows smoothly as a whole and is utterly saturated with fatty, whomping bass lines. It’s a great listen and will likely be considered the new favorite work from the artist. One could become perturbed by the political rants throughout the disc, but these are sparse. Actually, with songs entitled “Empires” and “The New Soma” (perhaps referencing Aldous Huxley’s mass-numbing pills) the rants seem almost appropriate.
It’s a great album for a band that is not known for their studio material, and is still better than most mainstream music out there. If you really want to experience STS9, they’ll be performing at Cary’s Koka Booth Ampitheatre on July 31.
