We’ve checked out the music they make available online (there’s an unfortunately limited number of tracks available to purchase on iTunes) – their website has substantially more, and – it’s free!
These guys remind me of this group of musicians that stopped me in my tracks on the way home from my (now abandoned) corporate job. They were playing in the Herald Square station at 34th Street (by the N/R/W & F/B/V/D lines) – and I stood there in my suit – mesmerized. I bought the CD immediately.
While Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society doesn’t have the intensity of that group (whose name btw was “Hypnotic Brass Ensemble”), there is an element of the unexpected to the tracks. Interesting grooves – which often deviate from the path one would expect them to go down. In short, it has a sly way of making you NEED to keep listening. All in all, I was a little let down to find that the vast majority of these tunes seem to follow the same structure. Which, tends to make listening to them for more than 45 minutes – well – after 45 minutes, you get the picture. You know what their story is. It’s not bad – in fact, it’s quite good. But it never deviates from the stated groove.
All that said, it would be great to see them live!
Check out: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society – Infernal Machines, and Live at The Jazz Gallery
