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Lost Tribe
Biography
Lost Tribe didn't so much start out as a band but as a collective of excellent studio musicians working on the side. Like the 1970s British group Brand X (Phil Collins' jazz fusion alter ego getaway from Genesis), Lost Tribe became a melting pot of the styles popular in the 1990s, mixing rhythmic jazz and rock with even some hip-hop elements. Saxophonist David Binney's sparse lines and the twin-guitar assault of Adam Rogers and David Gilmore blended above the rhythmic muscle of bassist Fima Ephron and drummer Ben Perowsky on Lost Tribe's self-titled 1993 debut CD. Most of the music was instrumental, but the occasional rap track ("Letter to the Editor") and chanted vocal ("Mofungo") provided a changeup between dizzying jazz fusion pieces like "Mythology" and "Cause & Effect." The group's 1994 follow-up, Soulfish, was even harder-edged without losing any rhythmic focus. Perowsky's thunderous drumming on "Whodunit" and the guitar interplay on "Second Story," "Planet Rock," and "Fuzzy Logic" made for a nouveau fusion of funk and metal. But just as a collective from the rap-jazz-opera hybrid the Screaming Headless Torsos (Ephron), jazz fusion guitarist Mike Stern (Perowsky) and African-influenced jazz saxophonist Steve Coleman (Gilmore) was required for Lost Tribe's elemental sound, the nature of the session musicians' beast had to signal an eventual slowdown.
Selected Discography