On first hearing Sounding A Mosaic, Bedouin Soundclash's sophomore release and U.S. debut on SideOneDummy Records, you'd be excused for thinking the trio met in Kingston, Jamaica, rather than Kingston, Ontario, about three hours outside of their hometown of Toronto. But Kingston is where vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Jay Malinowski, bassist Eon Sinclair, and drummer Pat Pengelly first met, at University, where a shared love of reggae music in all its various forms brought them together to form a band in 2001.
"We started trading records and realized we liked similar music," says Malinowski. "We never planned to play together." Malinowski--also a painter with a prestigious Toronto gallery and whose oil and wax piece adorns the cover of the album--came to the music through a love of the Clash and '80s Two-Tone bands like the Specials and the English Beat. Sinclair, meanwhile, whose parents were from Guyana, brought a feel for soca, hip-hop, and dancehall toasters such as Buju Banton.
But one listen to songs like the single, "When The Night Feels My Song," and you know where Bedouin Soundclash is really coming from. The song, which warmly evokes Toots & the Maytals' classic "Pressure Drop," is a tribute to the original ska and reggae by way of The Harder They Come and the original Wailers--music influenced by sweet American soul and R&B and made universal by the vision and songs of Bob Marley.
"We're a bunch of Canadian kids making music that is really far from our homes, so we try to make it true to what we grew up with," explains Malinowski. "We take it and do something to make it our own. Bob Marley was the first Third World pop star who proved, though coming from a small island, this music can speak to people around the world."
Taking their name from Israeli producer Badawi's 1996 album, Bedouin Soundclash take the notion of culture clash to its music. The group mixes reggae, ska, dub, and rock in a way that recalls not only blue-eyed predecessors like the Police and UB40, but Jamaican icons Desmond Dekker, Bob Andy, Ken Lazarus, Lee "Scratch" Perry, and Junior Murvin. Produced by Darryl Jenifer, the bassist for Bad Brains (another groundbreaking band that fused hardcore with reggae), Sounding A Mosaic lives up to its name.
"Shelter" has the classic, speeded-up ska sound of the Two-Tone bands, while the West Indian beat of "Gyasi Went Home" comes from a bass line Eon brought back after visiting his parents in their native Guyana, echoing Paul Simon's African music excursion in Graceland. "Living in Jungles" has Buju Banton's dancehall sass, "Criminal" the spacious dub sound of Augustus Pablo, "Immigrant Workforce" the Police's trippy world beat and "Nothing to Say" the call-to-arms punk bravado of the Clash's "Washington Bullets." And their version of the Maytones' "Money Worries" features guest vocals from that band's Vernon Buckley, now part of Montreal's vibrant West Indian community (and home to Bedouin Soundclash's Canadian label Stomp, which put out the group's debut, Root Fire, when the three were still college freshmen).
"Where Americans talk about a melting pot, Canadians like to refer to a mosaic," explains Jay about the country's multiculturalism. "A melting pot expresses the idea of assimilation, that no matter where you come from, you're an American. Here, we maintain our original ethnic identity while still mixing with others."
As chief songwriter, Malinowski's influences include the narrative bent of a Dylan and the social consciousness of a Joe Strummer. "Jeb Rand" was inspired by Raoul Walsh's 1947 noir western Pursued, in which Robert Mitchum plays a man with amnesia whose father was murdered and can't figure out why people are trying to kill him. "This is more of a songwriter's album, with more vocal harmonies, more cohesive songs," says Jay. "I've been listening to a lot of old gospel and calypso music and I think that comes across, too. I really feel like we're coming into our own sound, finding our voice, and hitting our stride."
With the release of Sounding A Mosaic the band will also be bring their live show to the U.S. through such substantial cross-continent treks like the Warped Tour. "That's an example of playing to an audience that might not know everything you're doing," says Jay. "We look forward to turning them on to a kind of music they may not have been exposed to before."
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