Galactic - Ya-Ka-May

Galactic are a bunch of talented musicians from good old New Orleans, Louisiana. The band totally defies any sort of classification. The only words that can even begin to pin them down are crunch and funky. Your going to want to dance when you listen to their news release, Ya-Ka-May, and if you don’t want to dance, your not going to be able to stop your body from sharing in the groove without you. It has a lot of fantastic guest artist collaborations, in fact almost every song on the album does. There is so much New Orleans flavor within the confines of Ya-Ka-May that listening may actually incite a riotous dance party on the spot.
‘Boe Money’ (featuring The Rebirth Brass Band) is an awesome instrumental jam combining a lot of funky elements with a grand horn section to create a really solid groove. The Rebirth Brass Band does a great job adding a lot of New Orleans funk and jazz and really livens the track up to another level. The Rhythm section keeps it solid, not a second for your feet to stop for the duration of the track. Background gang vocals throughout the song give you the feeling of being in New Orleans at a street festival listening to a rockin’ band.
‘Heart of Steel’ (featuring Irma Thomas) draws on a light hip-hop feel in the drum beat while infusing the rhythm and blues in the sweet vocals and a little old school blues-rock in the harmonica and guerilla guitar riffs. That is a lot to chew on for one song, but Galactic was born for it and make it happen with a little help from Irma Thomas. This song is a powerhouse with a really catchy chorus, lyrically and instrumentally: you can feel the instrumentals meshing with Irma’s vocals for the chorus to really drive it home, while staying in the pocket during the verse. “Tight” is the word that comes to mind and you can surely feel the New Orleans again in this track.
‘Dark Water’ (featuring John Boutte) is a really low down funky, bluesy, soul track with some smooth lyrics from John Boutte. The song starts off leading each individual instrument in and you know its taken form once the guitar riff cuts through the speakers and shakes your soul alive. The breakdown is so crunchy that trying to resist it would be futile: every song on this album was made to move to.
‘Liquor Pang’ (featuring Josh Cohen & Ryan Scully from the Morning 40 Federation) is a heavy blues-rock tune with a bit of electronic thrown in right next to all the hard alcohol streaming through its sound waves. This song reeks of whiskey, especially in the lyrics: “Finger on the trigger / take your liquor in the fast lane.” The song moves along at a sluggish pace, slowly injecting it’s awesome instrumentals into your skull via a solid rhythm section, and a grungy, bluesy infusion of horns, guitar and electric organ.
‘You Don’t Know’ (featuring Glen David Andrews & The Rebirth Brass Band) may be the most powerful song on Ya-Ka-May. The Rebirth Brass Band comes back for another round to lay it down with Glen David Andrews. The heavy, raspy, blues lyrics come from the soul and the brass is just phenomenal. Galactic lay down a gorgeous foundation and work so smoothly with their collaborators you would never know it was a track featuring artists who are not a part of the band.
These are only a few of the songs off Galactic’s newest release, Ya-Ka-May. To try and describe any of the tracks on this album in only one or two sentences would have been a serious injustice. This is one of those albums you must give at least one listen to this year, because you WILL be hearing about it.