Thievery Corporation at Electric Factory

It's funny that even after releasing six albums of vibrant multinational sounds and live instrumentation, Thievery Corporation continues to get tagged as a band of lounge-music smoothies. They're robots of relaxed-fit funk, of cocktail-culture cool.

Just because Washington's Rob Garza and Eric Hilton - the CEOs behind the Corporation - put on suits and ties to work their mostly midtempo mix of reggae, raga, samba, hip-hop, dub, Tropicalia, syrupy funk, and electronic soul, they're labeled "chill-a-tronica" and often nothing more.

Luckily, Saturday night's packed house at the Electric Factory knew different. Not only did the audience seem prepared to hear T-Corp's outsourced cast of Jamaican MCs toast with deep voices and Persian vocalists sing in Farsi, but the crowd also was ready to dance to the Corporation's lavalike fusion - awkwardly, but enthusiastically.

Programmer/DJs Garza and Hilton - high atop a stage filled with singers, sitar-ists, horn players, percussionists, and such - didn't even wear ties for the occasion.

Congas slammed and tablas sounded their tuneful slaps through the Indio-infused "Lebanese Blonde"; the slow, skanking hip-hop of "Sound the Alarm"; and the bass-bin rattling dub of "38:45."

With each song - the simmering "Sol Tapado," the shimmering "Liberation Front" - more layers and instruments got added: a sitar's pluck here, a jolt of brass there. Fans even got a dose of ire-filled politics and gentle religion, with the Corporation's singers and rappers delivering messages of retaliation, acceptance, and rage.

T-Corp held forth with a constant churning, a rolling, repetitive-sounding thunder that grew a bit tedious. Unlike Thievery Corporation's albums, its vocal participants were sadly anonymous, though solid. The hollered-out medley of Chuck Brown/Sly and the Family Stone/Parliament classics didn't help. Any party band might have done likewise. But Thievery Corporation was no mere frat-funk ensemble. And those were but momentary speed bumps in the bountifully beautiful land (several lands, actually) of the good groove.