The Phenomenal Handclap Band

The Phenomenal Handclap Band is a tight-knit group of musicians and artists from Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. Led by the Witch Doctor and the Medicine Man, the group has approximately 233,379 members in it who are all famous to some degree and if that weren't enough not one of them actually claps their hands. Instead, what the PHB do, is create some sort of strange tripped out psychedelic soul folk that sounds more like it belongs at Woodstock in 1969 then in the heart of the city. The band's self titled album is an exploration of just about everything in music and when you have a zillion members it kind of makes musical sense to cram all that onto one album.

Varied, diverse, and most definitely unusual, the PHB refuse to do anything by the book. Instead, the band pick up the book and throw it out the window and hope to never see again. The result is a freeflowing effort that is constantly in a state of flux and sounds like it. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as there's always something brilliant just around the corner and whether it's dancefloor friendly, soul influenced ballads, prog rock explorations or freak folk, PHB do it with dramatic flare. These guys are good and they're not afraid to show it on Phenomenal Handclap Band.

At times the record is a bit hard to get your head around, but with repeated listens, the album works itself out into something that's engrossing and loaded with heart. The fact that so much talent is gathered here makes the record a success by default. The songs, on the other hand, make it an absolute enthralling experience thats much more than the sum of the bands parts. What may have started as an idea to merge scenes of every sort has taken on a life of it's own and probably winds up being better than many of the players actual bands. From the disco tinged pop repetition of, "15-20" to the hazy lithium induced mellowness of, "The Circle is Broken," Phenomenal Handclap Banddisproves the theory that all superstar projects are doomed to failure. Impressive stuff indeed.