Snarky Puppy
Culcha Vulcha

I can define myself as a follower of the “Snarky Puppy” since 2010, and I can admit my “problem”: they are absolutely my favorite band.

When the release date of “Culcha Vulcha” was announced, I did nothing but preorder the album from my trusted retailer. While I was writing, trembling, for the reservation, I had the same face as Homer Simpson when he fantasizes about donuts.

They return to the studio for their eleventh album... I mean, eleventh album in ten years of activity: monstrous! As I was saying, before interrupting myself, “Culcha Vulcha” was recorded at studios in Tornillo, Texas, and Brooklyn, New York, all mixed by Nic Hard, which is completely different from the last seven albums, all live (including DVD).

I admit that, in my opinion, it’s not their best album (which is obviously “We like it here” from 2014, already excellently reviewed, and I compliment this, on this board), but there are tracks that are truly delightful.

“Tarova,” the track that opens this musical postcard, sets sail with a Cory Henry's Hammond organ performance which smooths the score for the brass theme. Bobby Sparks’ solo on the minimoog is a stylistic delight, but it's swept away by the final groove of Lettieri's baritone guitar, violently doubled in unison by Michael League’s Moog Sub Phatty.

We move on to “Semente,” a “Tio Macaco” 2.0 if you will, a bit mariachi, but consistently absolutely fun thanks to Chris Bullock's flute, which designs a carefree melody from the start, on which the rhythmic interplays of Ogawa, Werth, and Woloski are articulated. The melody is taken up, arranged in a multi-instrumental manner, both by Reynolds' tenor sax and Brock's violin, up to the inspired flugelhorn solo by Jennings.

These first two tracks were written by Michael League, just like the next two, which make “Culcha Vulcha” a very delightful album.

The closing track is “Big Ugly” where the Moog Bass of the Snarky Puppy leader meets the brass texture and the harmonic piano of the Prophet 6 by Justin Stanton, a rising talent of the New York big band. Again Zach Brock, with a distorted violin, embellishes the track until it clashes with the superfree solo, definitely out of any thought, of the unmistakable Moog by Cory Henry, a sublime musician, certainly among the best keyboardists of this decade.

I consider the main track, the one with more content, to be “Grown Folks” (to which I attach a version with Esperanza Spalding). Michael League welcomes us into their home with the introduction on the small bass and Chris Bullock with the tenor sax. The theme is muffled by the mutes in Maher and Jennings’ trumpets, but soon the exchange between the two trumpeters and the Moog Bass kicks off, as fun as it is complex. Bill Laurance's piano ostinato opens the strings of Lanzetti and Bob Reynolds’ breath, while the hilarious metrics of Larnell Lewis and Robert “Sput” Searight enrich and complete the rich mélange of the track. I repeat: monstrous!

“Gemini,” by Stanton, has much of a wavering, space-music feel, as does “Beep Box,” which could have easily been written by Edgar Froese (instead it’s by Chris Bullock), in “GØ,” also by Michael League, Chris McQueen's muted guitar emerges, Stanton’s dynamism is discovered (as both a trumpeter and a high-level keyboardist), and there’s also room for “The Maz” on the trumpet; Lanzetti makes his mark with “The Simple Life,” rewarding the Snarky guitar group, and “Palermo” climbs into a labyrinthine arrangement in which the rhythms, desired by the Argentine percussionist Marcelo Woloski, dictate the dynamics on which Henry's organ, the chief apostle of funk, floats.

The album would be finished, but a ghost track, “Jefe,” is a respectable ghost track, like the ones you’d always want to hear: super funky, leaving you with a smile.

A truly beautiful, varied, and colorful album that does not reach, as mentioned, “We like it here” or even the amusing moments of “Ground Up,” but it is certainly an act of strength by a super band that is writing pages of music in this first new millennium.

I have listened to them live four times and I am eagerly awaiting the fifth, sixth, seventh... hoping, quoting the Simpsons again, not to end up doing this while waiting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOE8daIUX7U