Blue Note Records released the Floratone collective self-titled debut on August 14, 2007.

Floratone is a brilliant, groove-heavy album by a four-member collective of the same name that features the instrumental teamwork of drummer Matt Chamberlain and guitarist Bill Frisell with producers Tucker Martine and Lee Townsend serving as equally significant imaginative forces. An 11-song collection of original soundscapes, Floratone also features a superb support team of bassist Viktor Krauss, cornetist Ron Miles and violin/viola player Eyvind Kang.

The Floratone sound is, in the words of Townsend, “futuristic roots music,” at turns jazz-vibed, swamp-funky, intensely rocking, ambiently grooved. The music drips with grit, lopes with a sweet lyricism, bursts with surprising turns, sinks in with FX’d beauty. There’s an aesthetic of euphoric journey as well as a nasty get-down-and-move sensibility. While steeped in the past, Floratone is cutting-edge, teeming with rhythmically charged music for the now. The album also spotlights Frisell’s multifarious guitar voice that ranges from straight jazz in the vein of Wes Montgomery (on “Swamped”) to spiky metallic rock (on the grinding number “The Future”) to sound-washed atmospherics (on “The Wanderer”).

“Floratone” Streaming Audio:
http://bluenote.edgeboss.net/wmedia/bluenote/floratone/floratone_128k.asx
http://bluenote.edgeboss.net/qtime/bluenote/floratone/floratone_128k.mov

Floratone Media Player:
http://www.bluenote.com/floratone
http://www.bluenote.com/floratone/index2.html