II (LP)

TRACKLISTING: 1. You and I 2. Big City 3. Sun Gun 4. Monad 5. All Things 6. Slow House 7. Let It Go 8. Samba da Maconha OVERVIEW: Though the influence of Detroit musically still reverberates the world over, the Portuguese capital of Lisbon isn™t high on the list of places that you™d twin with the Motown, punk and techno-pioneering former American industrial powerhouse. To listen to II though, the new album on New York label Golf Channel Recordings by Portuguese collective Gala Drop, is to unearth a spiritual link across the Atlantic hitherto undiscovered. Their first full-length record in six years, and their first release since 2012™s Pitchfork-lauded Broda 12›  a split with Ben Chasny from former tour mates Six Organs of Admittance ÚÚ-- sees the four-piece join forces with Detroit ex-pat Jerry The Cat, to pull together the variant strands of Motor City™s aural lineage with the more off the cuff Balearic-flecked grooves of their native Lisbon in a hypnotic melting pot of sound. To fit The Cat™s long and varied career into a couple of sentences doesn™t do justice to a man who™s quietly been working behind the scenes with some of the most notable musicians and producers through history. From percussion work with Parliament and Funkadelic, to performing live with John Lee Hooker, his involvement in the great rise of black music through the mid-to-late 20th century cannot be understated. Then there™s his work within the dance community, with releases on Sound Signature and collaborations with the likes of fellow Detroit artist Derrick May, techno game changer Theo Parrish and his 3 Chairs collaborator Moodymann, to name just a few. It™s as a vocalist he makes his mark on II, his dub-smeared murmurs and galvanising cries pushing Gala Drop even further away from the introspective delay-pedal drone duo they started out as nearly a decade previously. Meeting drummer Afonso SimÍes by chance in Lisbon, ˜The Cat™ initially joined to add further percussion to the group™s blurred mirage of spaced-out beach jams but, as the former says, šwe found out through a mutual friend that he™d sang in other projects he was involved in  so we decided to challenge him and found out that he had an incredible voice. We™d always dreamt of having vocals, but no-one in the band has Jerry™s ability.› SimÍes, Jerry The Cat and Gomes  the latter a part of contemporary Lisbon dance label Principe  were joined by bassist Rui Damaso and guitarist Guilherme Gonçalves on Broda, following the group™s self-released debut LP with a different line-up in 2008, a follow-up EP, Overcoat Heat and a series of shows with Animal Collective™s Panda Bear, who has become a fan of the band. II though is a simple yet pointed title. šThis is Gala Drop™s second full length album in almost eight years of playing together as a group, so we wanted to kind of make a point of it,› SimÍes says. šThere™s a strong feeling that this is a second stage for us in a lot of ways.› So it was that they embarked upon a year™s worth of solid rehearsal and recording that truly started to bring the folds of their music in and around the vocals of The Cat. šIt was a struggle at times,› says SimÍes of the self-discipline the group imposed on themselves. šIt was nerve wrecking in way because we knew we had to come out with something. Most of the ideas came from us jamming, with me and Nelson then taking them away to our studio, others were created by us and taken to the band.› This furrow-browed methodical way of working sits at odds with the lithe, vibrant exotica that lights up II, but it™s exactly that finely hewn process that™s resulted in the record™s irresistible groove. Seductive patterns of part-man, part-machine rhythms see 808s and samplers sitting alongside the drumming of SimÍes, allowing the lighter tissue of the track, shimmering synths and soulful vocals, to weave and wind their way around the foundations  never more apparent than on the pirouetting Mediterranean disco of closing track ˜Samba da Maconha™. ˜Samba da Maconha™ follows an album split between Jamaican reggae and dub influences, while at the same time drawing deeply from the progressive future afro aesthetic that™s come to typify the Lisbon club scene of the past few years. As for The Cat, he™s a noticeable presence from the two-step of opening track ˜You And I™ onwards, trans-Atlantic ties made explicit on ˜Big City™, where the defiance of lines like šlost in the city I™ll find my way, won™t be a victim, won™t be betrayed› amidst a scene of šblind ambition› and štoo much money on the brain›, take the song from the rolling afro-beat of its foundations to the boom and bust of his home city. SimÍes sees the similarities between Lisbon and Detroit too, although for him it™s the explosion of creative styles and tangents that he draws parallels with. šDetroit wound up a city with so much contamination between styles, from Motown to garage rock and then the birth of techno. Lisbon felt like that when I moved here too, I was going out to a techno club at the weekend but going to see a garage rock show or some free jazz band in the week. The post-Millennium Lisbon has been very fertile musically speaking.› It™s that eclecticism that™s allowed the group freedom to be similarly unhemmed. Their music takes on the bustling heat of the streets of Lisbon but, like the city itself, feeling within touching distance of the open seas and panoramic scenery beyond. A song like ˜Sun Gun™ is a perfect example, built around intricate bass lines and restless drumming that eventually stretches out into the distance as the track races along, each little inflection and echo of other places and cultures, only ever fleeting as Gala Drop skip through their alluringly idiosyncratic world.