If you’ve seen the wildly successful independent movie Garden State, you’ll know that The Shins’ “New Slang” isn’t the only song that will change your life. The soundtrack is chock full of what can endearingly be termed “hipster tunes,” including music from British trip-hop duo Frou Frou, acoustic minimalists the Cary Brothers, and a no-longer-obscure downtempo group by the name of Thievery Corporation. In fact, Washington, D.C.-based DJs Rob Garza and Eric Hilton have been sampling and mixing exotic Middle Eastern and South Asian sounds with modern-day drum loops, Moog synthesizers and trip-hop grooves since the early 90s.
Thievery Corporation’s latest CD, The Cosmic Game, builds on the same sounds as their successful 2002 release The Richest Man in Babylon, but, in Garza’s own words, “opens up the horizon a little bit with psychedelic influences and things that have a little bit more of a trippy feel.”
The result is a backdrop of 60s and 70s drum loops mixed with such varied instruments as sitars and tabla drums, instruments often played by fellow musicians from the duo’s musically vibrant Adams Morgan neighbourhood in urban D.C. But, as Garza explains, the Nixon-era drum samples are particularly key to the Thievery sound: “The way people record drums now, you just don’t get the same sounds. For instance, if you listen to music from the 80s, a lot of it has horrible digital reverb because that was the new thing at the time. It sounds very faded in a sense but probably right around the 70s you really start to get these great drum sounds.”
Overlaid on this rich instrumental backdrop are prominent guest spots by vocalists as diverse as the Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, ex-Talking Head David Byrne, and former Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell. Although the lyrics to many of the songs on the album have political overtones — the first track, for example, is titled “Marching the Hate Machines (Into the Sun),” a not-so-subtle reference to war — Garza insists that the duo is not politically active in their music, but just politically aware.
“We’re not telling people to support this or that cause… but we’ve had the opportunity to travel to a lot of different parts of the world and it’s very disheartening to see what’s happening right now in the States. So definitely, consciousness is something we want to bring to our music.”
Despite Thievery’s success in selling over a million albums, Garza and Hilton are still committed to remaining independent artists on their own label, ESL Music. Despite the hard work, says Garza, “it’s a lot more rewarding because we don’t have to answer to a boss or a committee at a record label, or an art and design team that’s going to decide [the album look] for us. We’re very hands-on and really enjoy being involved in the whole part of the process.”
The meticulous cultivation of contacts with like-minded independent promoters, distributors, radio and print journalists has certainly paid off in a big way, particularly with Garden State having “blown up” far beyond their expectations.
To support the new album, Thievery Corporation is currently in the midst of an extensive North American and European tour. The duo is making a concerted effort to reproduce as much of the album sound as possible. Garza remarks that the live show is “more energetic than people think… some people think that it’s going to be really chilled out, but sometimes by the end of the show people are crowd surfing and it can get kind of crazy!”
To replicate their layered sound live, they’ll be bringing along a coterie of instruments on stage: keyboards, synthesizers, drum machines, turntables, a horn section, a sitar player, a bass player, two percussionists, a guitar player, and four or five vocalists.
Unique to the Toronto show will be an additional throwback to an earlier era: Thievery Corporation is scheduled to perform at the recently restored Art Deco auditorium The Carlu, which, in its heyday, hosted concerts by another renowned musician, Canadian pianist Glenn Gould — although most likely there was no crowd surfing in his day.
Thievery Corporation plays The Carlu May 18th. Tickets are $35 at Ticketmaster and Rotate This.
