Oiling a powerful Machine

The Batucada's Sound Machine's amalgam of styles includes salsa, hip-hop, dub and funk - with heaps of percussion and a dominant Brazilian vibe.

James Hughes takes off his cap to reveal a bald patch. He jokes that this is what he gets for being the leader of the Batucada Sound Machine.

It's a big job because there are 15 of them in the band.

"Your job is very hard - I think you do very well," laughs guitarist Richie Setford.

"Yeah," deadpans bass player Alex Urlich. "I think if we didn't have James in the band, and it was just all the rest of us, it would probably fall to pieces."

Hughes' workload has just become bigger now that the band - who play a heated brew of Brazilian groove, hip-hop, dub, and funk - are doing overseas gigs.

This weekend they are at the East Coast Blues Festival in Byron Bay, Australia, alongside acts like Damian Marley, Beth Orton, Bob Geldof and David Gray.

On Sunday they will return to New Zealand for the Jambalaya Festival in Rotorua. In July they will play Womad in Reading, Britain, and be at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival throughout August.

Today, at Santos Cafe on Ponsonby Rd, six of them are gathered: Hughes, Urlich and Setford, as well as Wai Iti (saxophone), Andrew McDowall (trumpet), and the band's chatty agent, Bobby Mukai.

Hughes, a humble character, describes BSM as just a normal band but with lots of percussionists. "We use them for effect."

Mukai adds that Hughes is the one who conducts things so it doesn't sound like a hash, so to speak.

The others are quick to remind Mukai that it helps that they're all experienced musicians.

Iti: "Everyone is reasonably professional. We've been doing it for a long time and everyone is aware that when you're at rehearsal you can't muck around, because with 15 people you could spend a lot of time doing nothing."

Urlich: "Musicians can be pretty egotistical and if you don't have someone telling you to pull your head in then it's going to get out of hand."

Iti: "It's like a marriage, and you're married to 14 other people. It's hard enough being married to one. If you can get on with 14 other people, and go overseas with them, then that's a good thing. And the response we get from the crowd is a byproduct of that - we're having a good time, they're having a good time."

The Batucada Sound Machine was born at a samba jam night at Galatos, which started in early 2003.

Hughes: "I had studied a lot of Brazilian and Cuban rhythms and did a lot of drumming, and we did the gigs at Galatos once a month, had some fun, and then ... "

McDowall: " ... and then they needed some talent and a couple of horn players came along." Iti had just got back from London and met McDowall at a rugby game. "He was like, 'You gotta come down to Galatos one night, there's a Brazilian thing going on, bring your horn'. I said, 'Okay, sweet as'. And that's really how we all got together."

While BSM's sound covers everything from salsa and cha-cha to hip-hop, dub and funk, the Brazilian vibe is distinct.

However, they all agree that even though their sound might not be as authentic as the real thing, it's this special take on Brazilian music that makes it Batucada's own.

And they do have a "real Brazilian" in the band too. "Mani is the one that gives us that Brazilian street cred," Iti says.

And they don't mind being termed "world music". Organisers of world music festival, Womad, in Britain, think BSM are worth checking out.

The Womad website says: Never mind those All Blacks, Batucada is the true Kiwi First XV.

"It's a big market, it's bigger than you think and world music is marketed by how interesting it is," says Hughes.

Batucada are just one of the bands in a "Brazilian movement" happening in New Zealand which is thankfully destroying the cheesy Macarena salsa stigma.

"There's a whole lot more music to it than that and the rhythms are wicked," Hughes says.

Urlich agrees: "We've played gigs that I'm sure people there had no idea what the band sounded like. But there's just a certain rhythm there, that whole Brazilian thing, that is inescapable."

Who: Batucada Sound Machine

Where, when: Jambalaya Festival, Rotorua Carnival Meltdown Party, Sportsdome, Sunday, 9pm

Future releases: Live album (soon), and 12-inch (later this year)

GET WITH THE RHYTHM

If you're up for a sexy salsa or just a good old knees up this Easter then head to Rotorua's Jambalaya Festival of Rhythm, Dance and Carnival.

The festival brings together the best performers from New Zealand and overseas to showcase the music and dance styles of Brazil, Cuba, the Pacific Islands and Aotearoa.

Jambalaya, which takes place across multiple venues, starts tonight and culminates with the finale, the Carnival Meltdown Party, on Sunday night at the Rotorua Sportsdome.

For more information go to www.jambalaya.co.nz (see link below).