Thievery Corporation

With the release of their fourth album, The Cosmic Game, Thievery Corporation's Rob Garza and Eric Hilton notch a new high point in a career marked by ambitious sonic exploration, steadfast independence, millions of fans, and remarkable global reach. Blurring and transcending the boundaries between rock, breaks, future-bossa, and dub, The Cosmic Game is a psychotropic, aural concoction that stands as a landmark of electronic music, and an essential new installment in the ever-evolving Thievery odyssey.

"During the months of recording, we spent a lot of time reading favorite authors and discussing 'so-called' conspiracy theories," says Garza, an approach that manifests itself in the propulsive urgency of the music and the pull-no-punches immediacy of the lyrics. Throwing down the gauntlet from the albums opening line "well let's start by making it clear / who is the enemy here," the album's opening trio of 'Marching The Hate Machines (Into The Sun),' "Warning Shots," and "Revolution Solution" lay out a narrative of resistance that defines the album's worldview.

A collaboration with the Flaming Lips, "Marching" is a subversive dose of ambient-pop anchored by a hypnotic bassline and the vocals of Wayne Coyne, while the driving "Warning Shots" melds East India and the West Indies with Gunjan's transcendental cooing and Sleepy Wonder's fiery dancehall call to arms. On "The Revolution Solution" the combination of Perry Farrell's distinctive energy and Thievery Corporation's deft groove sensibilities are particularly compelling, as Farrell intones "The toil of the many goes to the fortunate few / The Revolution Solution / I've come to join you."

"The Cosmic Game" expands as it progresses, incorporating the full panoply of influences and stunningly creative juxtapositions that are Thievery's trademark. On "The Heart's A Lonely Hunter", David Byrne welcomes the listener to his metaphorical 'spaceship' over top of an infectious, Fela-inspired horn riff. Meanwhile, the Corporation's inwardly-reflective side bears the influences of the Indian and philosophic texts they'd been studying: Superstar vocalist Gunjan leads a trio of sitar-and-tablas-tinged tracks starting with &hibar;Shiva a hauntingly beautiful prayer to the Indian god, and including "Doors of Perception" (flipping the script on Huxley's much quoted tract) and "The Supreme Illusion."

Formed in Washington D.C., Thievery Corporation's music has blossomed at the heart of the empire, a city the duo often refer to as the real Babylon. The group are a major presence in a scene legendary for fierce independence, musically and politically -- from genre-defining pioneers such as Chuck Brown and Fugazi to grassroots organizations such as Positive Force and the Future of Music Coalition.

Conceived during the summer of 1995 at D.C.'s Eighteenth Street Lounge the venue that's still the spiritual and physical center of Thievery and ESL -- Eric and Rob bonded over strong drinks, dub, bossa nova and jazz records, then decided to see what would come of mixing all these in a recording studio.

The duo caught the ears of underground DJ's with their first two 12 offerings, "2001 Spliff Oddyssey" and "Shaolin Satllite" and with their 1997 debut LP, Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi, they had already begun to define a new genre of electronic music and connect with an international community of like-minded souls. Though the terminology has varied (downtempo, chill out, leftfield and a myriad of other permutations), they have been at the top of the game ever since.

After the warm minimalism of Sounds from the Thievery Hi-fi, Garza and Hilton raised the production value significantly with the highly acclaimed Mirror Conspiracy, which contained the seminal international hit "Lebanese Blonde," which was featured on the Grammy winning Garden State Soundtrack.

The next Corporate offering was the conscious and thought-provoking The Richest Man in Babylon, which raised the stakes just as record bins began to be flooded with imitators. Released in February of 2005, The Cosmic Game has already broken new ground for Thievery, notching their highest chart position and sales ever in its first week, and shows signs of being the group's most well-received to date.

With the renowned club and record label, acclaimed remixes, legendary live shows, and sales of over one million albums to date -- every single one of them self-produced and independently distributed -- Thievery Corporation are undisputed standard-bearers of electronic music, and among the most adventurous and compelling artists extant.

In the words of Rolling Stone: 'Together, Hilton and Garza explore foreign cultures with wide-eyed curiosity and a taste for the unexpected. Then they lock themselves in a studio and record songs that tell stories of a better world.'