The Beatroot Road continue their mission of fearless artistic creativity, which unites artists from around the globe spanning nearly every subgenre, while somehow tying it into a singular, powerful theme on the expansive new album “Humanimal”. Released on October 25th, this release is connecting, meaningful, visceral and exciting. This is truly a genre-defying journey, reminiscent in ways of other bold artists like Massive Attack, Gorillaz, Bjork, Ian Dury & The Blockheads and Horace X create with a lack of fear.
The Big Takeover Magazine describes this collaborative project as “A genre-defying journey that’s as emotionally grounded as it is sonically ambitious. For a project conceived in isolation, The Beatroot Road has emerged as a global collaboration rooted in human connection.”
From the band: “Humanimal” is a collection of 10 heartfelt songs, each taking a sideways look at a different part of being human. Seems like enough people are arguing about who is wrong and why just now, so this album is a time out that doesn’t take sides – trying to find some sympathy for everyone who feels joy and pain, in songs about human experiences. It’s an international internet collaboration of “post-genre” music, with artists from Austria, Jamaica, Canada, China, Kenya, Korea, Jamaica, Moldova, Nigeria, Punjabi, Türkiye, UK, USA, and Venezuela.
This isn’t ‘world’ music featuring specific cultural traditions though – we’re from a world where most people have grown up with influences from lots of different cultures – it’s for those of us that don’t comfortably fit behind any of the current social media fuelled polarizing picket lines.
The tracks themselves are experimental in mismatching instruments and genres, and each has levels to the music and lyrics, but all have accessible dance music at the heart if you don’t want to dig deeper than that. Although they’re all different, the works are held together with the same left-field rhythm section of bodhrán, rhythm fiddle, bass and organ.
All of this music is performed by humans on musical instruments and sung (without auto-tune) in 13 different countries, then edited and processed by Mark at Laboratory X Studio near North Vancouver in BC to make the finished work.
The title track “Humanimal” is a potential review that humans might get from an internet AI – all the things we can do that it will never be able to – good, bad and ugly. Seems there is room for improvement. The other songs take indirect views on different human conditions including love, hate, wisdom and culture, with the album ending on “Payday” – a track about the meaning of life. In the middle is a passionate plea to young, creative artists to fight harder against the rising homogenized slop to keep originality alive in music: ‘cos if you don’t there might be no one left for you to dance like this with’….”
In a world where we continue to be fooled by the advance AI while ignoring it’s hype and limitations, here emerges a deeply human work that emphasizes what we have done since the very beginning…telling stories and inspiring. Humanimal dances, fights, claws, motivates and peacefully bows to all to stand up for our creativity, beingness and the joy, pain and struggle of humanity.
