When Nomo put out their first album back in 2004, they were still doing their own take on what was essentially someone else's thing, namely the music of the king of Afrobeat, Fela Kuti. On their second album, 2006's New Tones, they found a sound that was more their own, spiking Afrobeat horn arrangements with an array of homemade, electrified metal instruments. Now, their third album finds the Michigan collective moving further out, establishing itself as a true innovator with a style totally its own. The groove is still at the heart of the band's music, but it's a deeper, stranger pulse than they've worked before, and arrangements have shifted away from Afrobeat crunch to a spacier, more symphonic approach. Call it cosmic funk or electro-jazz or something similar, but you can't call it Afrobeat revivalism anymore.
Where we've become accustomed to Elliot Bergman's compositions blasting in with a thundering horn theme, he holds out on us on Ghost Rock, opening the album with an entirely unexpected geyser of metal percussion and squelchy but warm synth. There is no true theme-- the horns mass underneath the keyboard lead like a swarm of angry bees, but the lid is kept on the hive. If it's not already clear by the time "Brainwave" shudders to a close, "All the Stars", which features a guest spot from Hamid Drake on percussion, makes it obvious that this band is in new territory. The song is mostly percussion, with a bass line and hazy horn theme snaking through it. The feel is similar to a gamelan orchestra, with multiple percussion instruments, many of them pitched, playing a series of interlocking patterns. Bergman's DIY electric likembe plucks out a phrase for the rest of the band to revolve around-- he's made quite a few of these likembes, displaying some of them in a joint exhibition with His Name Is Alive's Warren Defever, a close Nomo associate responsible for the band's production duties.
The rest of the album drifts back into somewhat more familiar territory, but the metallic chatter of sawblade gamelans, thumb pianos, and big, long sticks covered in small cymbals (a hallmark of the band's live show) is a constant background for the horn themes, occasionally rising to the fore. Bergman's horn arrangements have grown more sophisticated, leaving behind some of Fela's old army-of-horns approach in favor of Charles Mingus' precarious balance of structure and freedom. In part, he gets away with this because he has such a compelling and unique rhythmic element to work with now-- the pieces aren't hurt by the lack of a massive, ear-rattling horn line. "My Dear" actually has one of those huge themes, but it melts into short solos and has to duke it out with an answering theme on the guitar-- the baritone sax solo is especially mind-melting.
Nomo's third album is different from its predecessors, but not so different that fans won't be able to easily follow them on their latest left-turn. The result of the band's experimenting with rhythm, percussion, and amplification is an exciting, kinetic sound that takes a band that started out looking to the past and re-orients it firmly toward the future. There have been a lot of attempts to take funk into the cosmos, and this one succeeds using decidedly earthbound means: metal, electricity, and a willingness to use one's hands to make something that realizes a goal.
