Snarky Puppy – Culcha Vulcha

Although Snarky Puppy are already active since 2004, they may not yet have gained a substantial following outside their homeland USA. But that seems about to change. Formed by bass player, composer and producer Michael League in Brooklyn, the collective sometimes consists of roughly forty people – given the sometimes gargantuan effort in bringing four people together for dinner, already this would be a praiseworthy success. But of course, we’re not here to discuss the project management skills of the band’s core member. With their first studio album since 2008 (and their eleventh in total), “Culcha Vulcha”, they intend to take the rest of the world in storm. Their style could roughly be described as a groovy and dense, multi-layered jazz-funk and having already shared stages with the likes of Erykah Badu, Kirk Franklin, Roy Hargrove, Snoop Dogg and many others, one can guess that there’s plenty of room for free flowing variation of styles and improvisations – hence the wordplay “culcha vulcha”, obviously intended to evoke an image of a shameless predator of influences. The album has been recorded in Texas with an everchanging line up of more than twenty artists in total, which also explains the rich and dense and overall muscular sound, which integrates not only differents styles of music but also different approaches to performance. It showcases, albeit the massive convolute of the ensemble, a lot of extraordinary individual talent and therefore leaves plenty of options for the listener to find new aspects with every repeated listening. Can’t wait to see them live in Vienna at the Jazz Fest Wien on july, 11th …

yours sincerely,

Mikka