Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 4: Vodou Dance

This is the kind of album that some critics like to say "erases musical boundaries," but think about that for a minute. If you go around erasing musical boundaries for long enough, what you eventually end up with is only one kind of music, and how much fun would that be? Luckily, Los Hombres Calientes are engaged in just the opposite project; what they offer on Vodou Dance, Vol. 4 is a kaleidoscopic celebration of many distinctly different musical styles and traditions from the general geographical region of New Orleans and the Caribbean. The group created this glorious mishmash by traveling to Haiti, Cuba, Trinidad, and Jamaica without a firm itinerary and with little in the way of formal planning, playing and recording with musicians they found there. (They also, of course, recorded a significant amount of material back home in New Orleans.) The resulting program is long, fragmented, and endlessly fascinating: it veers recklessly from voodoo chants and drumming to reggae, from Mardi Gras Indian songs to gospel, and from second-line funk to swinging candomblé rhythms. Despite the wild variety of these songs and compositions — many of which are less than a minute long — the album hangs together well, its disparate elements connected by the warm New Orleans groove that animates everything Los Hombres Calientes do. Highly recommended.