Tribal customs

Former Atlantans, the now San Francisco-based Sound Tribe Sector 9 — members of a growing beat generation who find their rhythm more in the complex snapping of drums than in the snapping fingers of a coffee house — take their name from the Mayan 13 Moon-Earth calendar. The Ninth Baktun, the cycle from which the Sound Tribe get their name, corresponds with the height of the Mayan civilization, a time of great cultural, artistic and scientific transcendence, according to the band.
So, is this the story of a band that has created a unique hybrid of music so transcendent of genre it would make the Mayans proud? Not really. But it might be the story of a band whose time — whether Mayan or Greenwich Standard — has come.
Sound Tribe Sector 9 play atmospheric guitar/bass/keys/percussion over drum textures; complex patterns like otherworldly crop circles in a wheat field. It’s good, though not ground-breaking. Listen to early LTJ Bukem singles such as “Atlantis,” “Horizons” and “Music” and you’ll hear the influence of acid jazz, Lonnie Liston Smith and fusion group Weather Report on U.K. breakbeat. Smith is also a major influence on big-beat artists such as the Chemical Brothers, who also rely on grand drum patterns. Or listen to the Roots’ hit “You Got Me” and you’ll hear a live drummer performing jungle breaks — it’s just a sped-up extension of James Brown’s backing band during their ’60s prime. No, it’s nothing new, but it’s sure got a lot of great new names.
Fuzak. Organica. It’s as if the failure of electronica as a whole to break in 1997 has created the need for as many subgenres as possible in search of the next big thing. And, with recent articles in Spin and URB, the “granola-glowstick connection” (as URB calls it) may be next in line.
Maybe the timing is just right. After years of touring on grassroots support, Phish made the cover of Entertainment Weekly in 2000. Up to 50,000 kids have recently been gathering in California for raves. But now Phish are on vacation, and well, raves continue to enjoy enough of a bad reputation to invite drug stings and proposed legislation. It’s the perfect time for transcendence. And that’s where Sound Tribe Sector 9 come in, right?
Going to a Sound Tribe show has a lot of the elements both jam band fans and candy ravers have come to enjoy. Hell, maybe even open-minded hip-hop heads could enjoy a hippie-hop head trip. After all, both subcultures profess an environment ripe for exploring the mind, or whatever they’re calling drug use these days. STS9’s swirling sounds and layered patterns make the perfect acid test for those looking to immerse themselves in neo-psychedelia but unsure where to start. The band’s tribal dance parties are the kind of well-planned combination of music, cycling lights, cinematic projections and computer animation described in New Age parlance as a “complete environmental experience.”
Attempting to capture that intensity is Sound Tribe’s new album, Offered Schematics Suggesting Peace, the group’s first true studio recording (the first being quasi-live-to-tape and the second a limited edition live album), a satisfying experiment in tinkering with analog technology that improves vastly on the debut, a more traditional jam album.
The studio has helped them hone their beats. The record ranges from jazzy drum ‘n’ bass to housey tracks influenced by Afro-beat and Latin rhythms — suggesting the deep tribal house of artists such as Atlanta’s own Ananda Project, labels such as NiteGrooves and New York-style parties such as Joe Claussell’s Body & Soul — all replete with tablas and flute from Kofi Burbridge (little brother of Allmans bassist Oteil) and served with a side of noodling that doesn’t take away from the main course. Sound Tribe gets away with long songs without seeming too self-indulgent, in part because they forego the solo wankering of separate members and rely, says drummer Zach Velmer, “not so much on jams but movements.” That is, the band puts together pieces like a well-planned DJ set.
So the question remains: Is it Sound Tribe Sector 9’s time for a national breakthrough? Can they pull together two subcultures, the jam band crowd and the party kids, who are still prone to disparage one another despite eerie similarities? Could be. But the obstacle — past all this goofy talk of mind-expansion and crop circles — is getting people past current notions of what dance music should be. Because for all the rhetoric about Mayan calendars and leaving interpretation up to the listener and being yet another band following in the Grateful Dead’s dusty footsteps, STS9 make the kind of music that, at its most basic, is simply fun to dance to.
Beyond all the sensationalism and skepticism are the sounds, more caffeinated, less crusty than your average jam band, more like a night drinking Red Bull than trying not to spill the bongwater. It may not be the next big thing, but it’s a good thing, a live synthesis of several decades of evolving rhythms coalescing in a form ripe for reinterpretation. What’s the Mayan word for pleasantly postmodern?
Sound Tribe Sector 9 play the Roxy, Sat., Dec. 23. Showtime is 9 p.m. Tickets are $14, available through Ticketmaster.