Experimental funk with The Dub Narcotic Sound System
This week’s selection will get your booty shaking and your heart thumping. And seeing how movement generates heat, it goes without saying that this week’s selection just may save your life this winter.
The Dub Narcotic Sound System are the most eccentric, eclectic, foot-tappingly fly party this side of the Mississippi. Coming from indie rock hub Olympia, Washington and named after K Records’ Dub Narcotic studio, the band features K Records founder Calvin Johnson and Heather Dunn and Chris Sutton-both members of minimalist funk band C.O.C.O.
Combining the lo-fi Olympia sound with bass heavy grooves and loose drum rhythms, the Dub Narcotic Sound System is a fun collective of rap, reggae, blues, rock, and funk sounds. Experimentation is the word of the day with this band, and they aren’t afraid to move from the Hendrix-inspired rave-up “Teenage Time Bomb” to the rap-rock of “Hand Clappin'” or the ten-minute funk epic “Fudgy the Whale.”
Any of their four albums is an excuse for a party. Guaranteed to raise the dormant rug-cutter in the tamest among you, Dunn and Sutton strip the music down to its most basic elements to create underneath every track a fluid bass and drum groove that isn’t afraid to move with the mood and, more often, with Johnson’s erratic bass voice.
This is where the Dub Narcotic Sound System breaks from traditional funk. They bring to rhythm-heavy music an ethic every bit as unpolished as their K label mates, and the result is an almost primal sound. But it also means that the drums and bass are brought again and again to the front of the mix.
For your next party you’ll probably play something lame like “Jingle Bell Rock” or “Santa Baby,” but you don’t have to. Sure the Dub Narcotic may not bring the holiday spirit, but they never fake the funk. I’ll take the latter every time.
Zach Pendleton’s column The Best You’ve Never Heard runs each week in Diversions. Comments can be sent to him at zachp@cc.usu.edu.