This time around a strange new hybrid has appeared, sprouted from seeds flung over from Texas via Florida and cross-pollinated by insects from the South Asian seas. Macha is two brothers from Texas, one ex-Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians guitarist and a Georgian with the name of a Japanese video game hero. But it's the rickshaw-load of esoterica that makes the band stand out. Javanese zither, Balinese bamboo flute, hammer dulcimer, Hawaiian slide guitar, talempong nipple gongs and Nepalese shawms. The outcome was giddy, complicated and fresh.
Menace oozes from a moody, overdriven bass line.
The most captivating sequence of songs is a somber, pensive movement in three steps. Somehow the organ manages to sound just as foreign as the gongs. The album isn't perfect. Macha accomplish something a little more subtle. It makes sense that Macha convened in Athens.