CSC Funk Band
(Fat Beats)
Upon the disbanding of prog-noise junkies theusaisamonster, hulking guitar godhead Colin Langenus - half of that legendary duo - not only shed his trademark white boy dreadlocks but also his former band's spastic rock for CSC Funk Band, a straight-up funk beast. Akin to Glenn Branca's assembling of a guitar army for one of his dissonant symphonies, Langenus gathered up a whopping ten members (including keyboard maestro Matt Mottel of NYC avant-garde misfit twosome, Talibam! and SST Records veteran Jimmy Thompson on percussion) and emerges with the most conventional of bands in an underground rock full of oddities: a killer funk juggernaut.
After a handful of funkalicious 7-inchers released by the Electric Cowbell label, CSC Funk Band debuts with the quintessential loft party record, Things Are Getting Too Casual, a set that shows this Fela Kuti, Meters and Minutemen-influenced unit - whose throngs of horns include sax, trombone and oboe - has the chops not just for the occasional single but for a seamless LP, to boot.
Dance floor scorchers like "We Don't Care," "Bad Banana Bread" and "Funk Shoppe" steadily build on Langenus' repetitious funk shredding, Mottel's psych-synth streaks and Blaxploitation-esque horn and percussive grooves, the songs addictive and melodically concise while never veering into cacophonous, experimental terrain. CSC Funk Band cuts the fat and stays true to their calling: the funk.
DOWNLOAD: "Caneca," "We Don't Care" BRAD COHAN
