Hit Pick

Related Content

• Super Bowl commercials: Elton John, Flava Flav, Echo and the Bunnymen and more
  February 5, 2012
• Naeem Juwan of Spank Rock on "#1 Hit," Bowie, Prince, James Brown, and the perils of nostalgia
  October 25, 2011
• Five infamous monuments named after musicians of questionable moral character
  August 5, 2011
• Bootsy Collins on his unique persona and getting his start in funk playing with James Brown
  June 6, 2011
• Meet Devan Blake Jones, another burgeoning R&B sensation from the Mercury Sauce camp
  November 15, 2011

More About

• James Brown
• Fela Kuti
• Curtis Mayfield
• World Music
• Celebrity News

Primitive cultures used the drum to communicate with neighboring villages, among other things. The Motet, which performs Friday, September 7, at the Boulder Theater with Being Lara Maykovich, uses drums and percussion as the foundation of its culture-colliding sound. Employing rhythmic patterns that echo Pan-American, Cuban and African music alongside groovy electric guitars and jazz-inflected organs, the Motet creates its own shape-shifting brand of world music. On Play, its most recent release, the Motet combines the soulster grooves of Curtis Mayfield and James Brown with the celebratory, spiritually suggestive stylings of artists like Fela Kuti. It's a mishmash, all right, but one that never veers out of control: Drummer Dave Watts, vocalist Jans Ingber and the other Mo-men are too focused on the movements of the jam to let it get away from them. The Motet's primary goal seems to be to induce listeners to dance; along the way, fans are likely to find themselves shaking their stuff to a beat they don't recognize from the Western canon.