Herald Rating: * * * *
Label: Border
Verdict: Auckland 13-piece come on like Kool and the Gang and celebrate
New Zealand funk-inspired bands can often come across as happy clappy and twee. Then there's BSM, previously known as Batucada Sound Machine, whose debut album is solid and beefy withmoments of head-nodding poise, especially on part one of album centrepiece, Hechicera.
Considering how many members in the band - 13, including rampant percussion and fiery brass sections - they'd want to sound big and beefy but size has nothing to do with it. BSM's secret is the way they seamlessly mix funk, hip-hop, dub, and rock with Latin, Afro-beat and other world music flavours.
Take stand-out Cumbia del Cambio, a half-English, half-Spanish track that starts with a skanking dub groove, gives way to a more frenetic Latin rhythm that's backed up by clattering percussion, then it warps into a sonic, banging dancefloor anthem until it ends with a scream and celebratory blasts of horns. There's also stunning English/Portugese serenade I See You, the crazed and hallucinatory Vai Chegar, and the psychedelic samba of Batucada Ae.
Rhythm & Rhyme, produced by Neil Sparkes from Transglobal Underground, is all over the place but in the best possible way.
