Bullfrog

Bullfrog came together in 1994 inside Montreal, Canada, and soon began to claim space on dance floors across North America once their earliest gigs concluded. The six-piece unit included Mark Robertson on guitar and vocals, Eric San—better known as Kid Koala—on turntables, James Sobers, Peter Santiago on bass, Massimo Sansalone on drums, and Joanna Peters supplying percussion and vocals. Rather than hewing to a single genre, the musicians decided to merge assorted styles and outside influences into each track. Pop hooks sat atop grooves built for movement, while stacked and far-reaching melodies emerged from the same sessions; the chief wellspring remained their pooled musical past, most visibly through Koala’s prior work with Gorillaz and Deltron 3030. The resulting high-voltage rhythms lent extra force to their nonstop live sets and simultaneously drew a sizable audience. Shared bills with Maceo Paker and Medeski Marin & Wood further enlarged that loyal following and cemented critical esteem throughout the years that followed. Two self-titled EPs and innumerable road dates preceded the eventual release, in 2001, of the band’s first long-form effort, the self-titled album Bullfrog.