Mike Dillon's Go-Go Jungle: No Go-Go?

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D.C. AREA MUSIC FANS need to know the truth about Mike Dillon's Go-Go Jungle: The band doesn't play actual go-go music on their debut album, "Battery Milk." Rather, its name comes from Mike Dillon (duh) — vibraphonist and all-around percussion guy — and two of his longtime cohorts, bassist/vocalist J.J. "Jungle" Richards and drummer "Go-Go Ray" Pollard. The latter lays down some Trouble Funk-esque breaks on "GoGo's Theme" and "Stupid Americans," it is true, but in order to get the honorific you have to play go-go all the time, like Go-Go Mickey.

Instead the Jungle brothers, whose ranks also include bassist Ron Johnson and saxman Mark Southerland, mix up funk, rock, jazz and their own odd sensibilities. In the "GoGo's Theme" track, a whirling sound and a rhythmically stubborn bridge lead to some incisive improvisations, including Southerland and Johnson coming in at acute angles over one of the Pollard breaks — you'd never hear that from Trouble Funk, even at its super grittiest. "Broc's Last Stand" and "Lopsided Melon Ball" let Dillon shine over tight grooves, and he responds by electronically smearing his vibe sound to make nasty-nice chords and conjuring gripping elaborations at high velocity.

Dillon had a compositional hand in all but one of the tracks on "Battery Milk," including the songs with lyrics. Richards' smoky speaking growl amplifies the moral decay in the texts of "The Voyeur" and "Robbing the Bank," effective contrasting with their cool (yet snaky) grooves. "Stupid Americans" and "Bad Man" (the latter featuring vocal samples from our current White House resident) will appeal to a different kind of Washington audience, and you know whether you're in that one. But when Richards sings his cover of Aaron Neville's "Hercules," the contrast of his thin vocal timbre with the snappy Dillon-led accompaniment makes his reading unexpectedly affecting.

So even if the Go-Go Jungle does not live up to its promising name, Dillon and company still deliver some nasty music with an engagingly weird edge. And perhaps for their next album, they will grant us the joys of hard jazz over pocket beats. We can only hope.

Written by Express contributor Andrew Lindemann Malone
Photo by Michael Weintraub