Polyrhythmics: Chelada

The funk band  Polyrhythmics is back at in 2020 with an exciting new release. "Chelada," single from their album, Man From The Future (Color Red, 2020), is a spicy melange of flavors that combines middle eastern tonalities over a simple, but heavy groove. The band veers away from traditional compositional tactics by keeping the rhythm section at the forefront with horns augmenting the tune. Ben Bloom (guitar) and Jason Gray (bass) carry the melody while the horns add textures through punches and swells on muted trumpet (Scott Morning), trombone (Elijah Clark) and flute (Art Brown). A close listen reveals nods to Rush's "Tom Sawyer."

With this third single off of the band's fifth full-length album, the group creates different movements within a singular song as demonstrated by a transition to Karl Olson's percussion feature over a vamp that then passes the torch to Nathan Spicer's sparse and eerie Moog solo. The song crescendos into an epic war-like melody that is introduced by the horns and echoed by the full band. Drummer Grant Schroff says: "This track came together pretty quick in the studio. Unlike some of the other tunes from this session, we had already performed it a few times, and its overall arch was really starting to gel and take shape. I think this track is a good example of how our writing is evolving and we are making music that is more through composed and drops into different movements or "vibes." This is definitely one of the more darker and epic tracks on the record."