What makes Thievery Corporation so great and even remotely important? It is a question that I will have answered sometime before midnight tonight as I plan to climb into the Berkeley Hills and settle down for a hot solstice night of grooving beneath the stars at the Greek Theater where Thievery, Bebel Gilberto and Los Amigos Invisibles will bust out a musical polyglot of world fusion.

Thievery, are an interesting bunch. I actually signed them to their first digital music deal when I was at emusic. Their label, Eighteenth Street Lounge was just taking off with the first full lengths by TC as well as releases by Thunderball and Ursula 1000.

The whole concept of a complete and fully fleshed out brand was thoughtfully and thoroughly carried out by Rob Garza and Erik Hilton of TC as an end-to-end user experience that borders on near genius. The two met at Hilton’s D.C. based Eighteenth Street Lounge, which featured hip, underground soul bossa sounds and tasty world rhythms. It was the Eighteenth Street Lounge, which became their idea incubator and the name of the label that would feature their and ultimately other artists’ work.

The duo consciously sought to create a cosmopolitan sound and image, donning suits when they played, creating an aura of mystery and sophistication that included memes like James Bond, secret societies and occult magic. Being D.C. based only reinforced the image of beats and international intrigue they were laying down. As a result, taking part in The Thievery Corporation experience is more like being associated with some loose knit cell of knowing hipsters in on some sort of plugged in grid of inference and reference. Their two latest records, The Richest Man In Babylon and Cosmic Game reflect themes of transformation and breaking the spell of illusion, especially, Cosmic Game,; which features tracks like, “The Holographic Universe,” “The Doors Of Perception” and “The Supreme Illusion.” Their profile is big enough now to include the likes of Perry Farrell, David Byrne and The Flaming Lips as contributors to the Cosmic Game.

Given the headiness of the material and the momentous seasonal alignment within the air of an oracular amphitheatre, I’m holding the space for a perfect moment of transcendent realization, or at the very least, the shared collective nod, that we’re all in on something, very, very special.

by Robert Phoenix
Robert Phoenix moves freely among a vast array of realities, but tends to focus-in on music and human evolution.