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Galactic's new album features a litany of Louisiana artists. |
BY RYAN BROSMER
FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR
Though most of its members do not come from the Big Easy, Galactic is a band that loves New Orleans and the city's unique musical culture.
The jazz/funk/hip-hop group's latest album, "Ya-Ka-May," out on Anti Records next Tuesday, is nostalgia wrapped up in a novel approach--and before you can get the album you can see Galactic live at the 9:30 Club this Saturday.
The group's sound is something more traditionally linked to MCs rapping over a DJ scratching records, and triggering loops and samples. But make no mistake--this a full band. Galactic consists of Richard Vogel on keyboards, Stanton Moore on drums, Robert Mercurio on bass, Ben Ellman on saxophone and harmonica, and Jeff Raines on guitar.
There's been a recent trend in the hip-hop world to meld live bands into the mix, but Galactic has been doing it the whole time.
"Hip-hop is a studio art," Vogel said in a recent phone interview. "But when it comes to performing live there's really no substitute for what a band can bring."
After 12 years and five previous albums Galactic had finally developed a solid, defining sound, he said. So they decided to enlist some special help to make the new album something different.
"We kind of had a wish list," Vogel said. That is, a list of fellow New Orleans performers with whom they wanted to collaborate. "We knew that we wanted to make [a] record that, this time, was all New Orleans--at least Louisiana--artists."
Band members took the list and started calling people they thought might actually call back. The result is an all-star cast of New Orleans past and present. This includes legends like Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint alongside up-and-coming hip-hop MCs like Katey Red and Sissy Nobby.
"This is the kind of record that we wanted to make for a long time," Vogel said. "But it takes being around for a while before you feel like you can call Allen Toussaint and maybe he'll call us back. So, we just started doing that, and we lucked out."
If there is a message to be taken from "Yo-Ka-May" it's that the genres of music in New Orleans all form one world. But New Orleans is a big city. It was up to Galactic to get them all to it on one record.
Group members ended up asking each other, "Can we make this work?" Vogel said. "Can we make all this things sort of sit together on one album?"
They got Toussaint and Thomas onboard, along with other traditional acts like the Rebirth Brass Band and Walter "Wolfman" Washington. But they also wanted to represent what was emerging in the current club scene. That meant weaving in "bounce" hip-hop.
"It's New Orleans music that's going on right now," Vogel said. "The bounce rhythms and the rapping and partying and silliness to me, it's just part of that New Orleans thing."
Vogel said that Galactic's style, and the appeal it has, comes from its unique "insider-outsider perspective" on the New Orleans scene. Only drummer Stanton Moore is a native of the city.
"We're from here and we're not from here," Vogel said. "We love the culture and music here, and we dug into it very deeply."
Right now in New Orleans there's more on people's minds than just music. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is still ever-present, but they're also sending a team for the Super Bowl for the first time on Sunday. Galactic happens to have this Sunday free on its tour schedule.
"We're definitely Saints fans," Vogel said. "I don't know anybody in this city, especially in this day and age, who isn't. It's pretty huge."
Ryan Brosmer is a freelance writer
Email: brosmer@gmail.com.
