Mixing elements of psychedelic techno and world music into a heady stylistic brew,
Medicine Drum picks up right where
Loop Guru and
Banco De Gaia's early work left off. With the opening "Shaman's Prayer," with its trippy synth sounds augmented by a shamanic chant, the group throws its hat into the dwindling ethno-techno ring, while "Mandrogora" ups the bpms a notch, matching tribal drums with futuristic samples to create danceable grooves perfect for post-modern primitive rituals. On "Siouxpernature," a Native American ensemble's song is interwoven with a hypnotic rhythm, then the whole thing transforms into a freaky synth romp
Kraftwerk would've been proud of. Not every song here fuses these two disparate styles so seamlessly, and a few suffer from a mind-numbing lack of variation, but there's enough promising material here to make
Supernature worth a listen.