Can we say the same for techno's four-to-the-floor, decidedly urban and club-oriented, stripped-down cousin, house music? Take an informal survey, and chances are the average non-dance head will be hard-pressed to define house music, let alone know it when he/she hears it. In that sense, house--with its insistent repetition, rock-solid beats and trademark diva wailings--is the true underground dance music survivor.
House music, in all its silky-smooth yet relentlessly hard-driving glory, is the medium of choice for Sunshine and Moonbeam (seriously), two latter-day San Francisco hippies who record and perform under the name Dubtribe Sound System.
What makes Dubtribe unique in the house-music universe, however, is this: Not only do they painstakingly program synthesizers and carefully place drum breaks and soaring vocal snippets in order to create the trademark house sound on record, they also perform it live, with added hand percussion. What's more, the whispers, sighs, chants and diva wails one hears on a Dubtribe recording are all produced by the self-contained unit of partners Sunshine (male) and Moonbeam (female); sampling sound-bite collectors they are not.
There's more still that sets Dubtribe apart from the competition in the house: their aforementioned hippieness, or, more fairly, their commitment to promoting positivity, love and unity in the world (but especially in underground dance culture) through their music. Fliers with such altruistic titles as "Reclaim Your House Nation" and "Positive," and signed, "Ministry of Love," are distributed at the weekly (and then some) dance parties that Dubtribe has hosted and performed in the Bay Area since 1993. Repeatedly warning against those only in it for the money (or for their own glory), the pair evangelizes unceasingly on staying committed to the music (downplaying commercial success), accountability of promoters to partygoers, informed recreational drug use, and maintaining a positive, loving vibe among partyers. "Question the intentions of a party larger than 500 people," and "Support a variety of DJs and parties," urge the fliers.
But don't dismiss Sunshine and Moonbeam as all-sweetness-and-light, head-in-the-clouds flower children. They are willing to shake people up to get a message across through gentle yet forceful exhortations in songs like "Mother Earth," a pro-environment nationwide rave hit of a couple years back. Dubtribe is also notable for trying to keep house music from being commercialized or factionalized. A few years ago, they turned down record labels courting them which they considered merely to be exploiting the "next big thing." Eventually, they were inked by Organico Records.
The Phoenix underground dance party scene, troubled as it's been with factionalism among promoters and deejays, likely could learn a thing or two dancing before Dubtribe's pulpit of positivity.
"Mother Earth" is one of the varied house-and-acid trance offerings on Dubtribe Sound System's long-awaited, self-titled debut CD released this past summer. After the dreamy, echoing a cappella introduction "A Little Sun," the group's most recent heavy deejay-rotation tune, "Sunshine's Theme," sets the tone for much of the album: smooth, early-morning house with Moonbeam's diva efforts playing against Sunshine's firm oratory. After the piano-driven R&B tune "So Much Love," featuring Moonbeam on a bluesy, Laura Nyro-style vocal, come two organ blues cuts, "Deep Soul" and "Hold Your Head Up High," the latter eventually dominated by a wild jazz saxophone.
The second half of the CD turns trancey. An album of mostly valleys with few peaks of intensity, to the serious frenetic stompers on the dance floor, it is almost chill-out music. But "Eighty East" gets a bit earthy, and, thanks to the tribal drums and Moonbeam's rhythmic sighs, even sexy. A dirty, snaking, goa-type synth teases us for a while, but the gently pulsating, melancholy organ is never far away.
The most intense moments on the album come toward the end, with the wicked acid trance of "Acceleration" and then "Mother Earth," whose buzzy, liquid synth line weaves around a mixed bag of almost funky percussion--which is as nasty as things get here. But it's all just a prelude to Sunshine's meditation on our mistreatment of the Earth. His determined, growling insistence that "we've GOT to live together" and "I want my planet BACK!" shakes us out of a trancey dream world but unfortunately brings the song to an abrupt end before it goes anywhere.
And that's ultimately the problem with this album as a dance-floor instigator: too much smoothness, too much evenness--it never really lets go, and never really takes us anywhere we haven't been before. This is lush, smooth, progressive house, not the deep, sweaty, New York-style pounding that inspires you to do things with your body on the dance floor you never dreamed of. And that's okay, but maybe a little out of line with Dubtribe's message of transformation and going beyond boundaries and their pleadings to "open your mind."
Dubtribe has toured extensively in recent years with on-the-spot synth programming, improvised singing, live percussion, and their patented message of love and unity. By all accounts, it's a show not to be missed, one that generates transformative magic that is sorely missed in the static world of the studio captured on the CD.
In case anyone has doubts as to the sincerity of Dubtribe's commitment to non-commercialism and the underground, Moonbeam had this to say while declining to be interviewed for this article--an opportunity most relatively unknown, small-label performers typically go for: "We're really not down with doing any interviews right now, simply because we'd like to remain as anonymous as possible. We really wanna keep ourselves underground, 'cause that's where we're most happy."
Dubtribe is scheduled to perform on Saturday, November 9, at High on the Vibe, a three-day rave to be held at various yet-to-be-disclosed locations. Sunshine Jones is scheduled to deejay the first night, Friday, November 8. For information call 720-
