Orgone

Los Angeles-based ensemble Orgone injected fresh energy into funk revivalist and jam band scenes upon entering the studio for Ubiquity Records during the mid- to late 2000s, issuing a spirited collection of covers alongside original songs. Their style encompasses deep funk, Memphis soul and blues, Afro-beat, hip-hop, Latin jazz, electronic dance music, and house.

Although the earliest players convened in the early 1990s, a unified group did not emerge until the decade’s close. Guitarist, composer, and producer Sergio Rios anchored the lineup and remains its sole founding member. Apart from their own live jam sessions, the musicians supported various hip-hop artists on tour and in the studio through roughly 2001. That year, vocalist Fanny Franklin of the L.A.-based hip-hop orchestra Dakah joined for the privately released self-titled debut.

Orgone performed live behind Little Brother, the Pharcyde, Pharoahe Monch, and Tone-Loc. Ubiquity released the I Get Lifted 12" and The Duck Gravy 7" in spring 2007, followed later that year by the full-length The Killion Floor. The group also served as Alicia Keys’ studio band on As I Am.

After departing Ubiquity in 2011, Orgone issued the self-released New You in 2013 with vocal contributions from Tiffany Austin, Niki Crawford, and Franklin. They moved to Colemine Records for the 2016 double album Beyond the Sun, which featured Adryon de Leon on lead vocals and appeared jointly through Shanachie. In 2018 the band delivered the Colemine mixtape Undercover, a set of thirteen classic funk and soul covers drawn from the Meters, Funkadelic, Booker T & the MG’s, Aretha Franklin, Betty Wright, and additional sources; de Leon returned on vocals alongside guests Terin Ector and Kelly Finnegan, the lo-fi production lending the performances a kinetic, live-in-the-room feel. Reasons and Raw & Direct followed in 2019, the latter surfacing digitally in 2020.

Late in 2021 Orgone established 3 Palm Records to handle their own releases. Connection arrived in May, showcasing guest appearances by Cyril Neville, Black Shakespeare, the Pimps of Joytime, and others. July’s Moonshadows contained ten tracks, eight of them vocals shared by de Leon and guests including Ector, Masauko, and Jamie Allensworth. The 2022 album Lost Knights spotlighted the core quintet of de Leon on lead vocals, Rios on guitar, keyboardist Dan Hastie, drummer Sam Halterman, and bassist Dale Jennings, with additional contributions from Ector, Jesse Wagner, Gino Garofalo, and Phil Diamond. Following tours of the United States and Europe, the band returned to the studio in late summer 2023, joined by backing vocalists Gina Murrell, Garofalo, Finnigan—who also played organ on one track—and Ector. Allensworth supplied lead vocals on “Running Low,” while Congolese singer and drummer Mermans Mosengo performed “Zum Zum” and the closing “Tula Muisi (Dance Like Them),” both of which he wrote. The resulting nine-song Chimera appeared on 3 Palm in February 2024.