The Band
Thievery Corporation is an American electronic music duo consisting of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton. Their musical style mixes elements of dub, acid jazz, reggae, Indian classical, Middle Eastern, hip hop, electronica, and Brazilian, including bossa nova.
Garza and Hilton met in May 1995 at the Eighteenth Street Lounge in Washington DC. They were introduced by a mutual friend and proceeded to discuss their admiration for the work of Antonio Carlos Jobim, ’60s-’70s bossa nova, and jazz. Weeks later, in a home studio, they began to work on the music that would launch Thievery Corporation. After several early 12" singles, Thievery Corporation released their first Lp, “Sounds From the Thievery Hi-Fi” on ESL Music.
A lot more about their history can always be found on Wikipedia or on their website, so I’m not going to insist that much on this side of the story.
The Albums
My first contact with their music was back in 2005, when I got from someone a folder with a lot of music, named “Trip Hop”. Next to the great names of the genre, like Hooverphonic, Leftfield, Massive Attack, Moloko and Portishead, there was a folder with an interesting name, Thievery Corporation. Inside it, two albums, one named “Sounds From The Thievery Hi-Fi”, and the other “The Mirror Conspiracy”. I took both albums and queued them into Winamp (heh), and played randomly one of the songs in those albums. Man, I was amazed by the sounds I heard coming out of my speakers. The song 2001 Spliff Odyssey was playing and it was such a musical trip that it prompted me to listen to both albums, start to finish. And then again. And again. And again. I was completely mesmerized. This is when I fell with songs like “.38.45 (A Thievery Number)”, “The Foundation”, “Lebanese Blonde” and “Air Batucada”, among others.
Thievery Corporation — Sounds From The Thievery Hi-Fi
1996 (2014 Re-issue) - 2xLP
Thievery Corporation — The Mirror Conspiracy
2000 (2014 Re-issue) - 2xLP, Signed
I rarely write a lot about the records I add to my collection, but this is a special one. The Mirror Conspiracy is probably one of the best albums by @thieverycorporation and one of my all-time favorites. And since today, I’m lucky enough to have a copy signed by @erichiltonmusic! Hope one day I’ll get the chance to get an autograph from @robgarzamusic and the entire crew.
Several years later, I moved to Bucharest and thanks to a good friend and colleague of mine, Sasha, I rediscovered the band and got access to some of their newer albums. They released by then “The Richest Man In Babylon”, which I still think to this day is one of the best albums of all time, generally speaking, and it’s my favourite album to play when I want to relax after a long day. Straight up masterpiece. I love it so much, I made a MiniDisc bootleg of the album.
Also “The Cosmic Game” was already released, with a stronger social message, the song “Amerimacka” being the best over there, and the album “Radio Retaliation” was freshly out and “الشعب المنسي (The Forgotten People)” is a song that is still on top of my list.
Thievery Corporation — The Richest Man In Babylon
2002 - 4x12", 2xLP (2014 Re-issue)
Thievery Corporation — The Cosmic Game
2004 (2014 Re-issue) - 2xLP
Thievery Corporation — Radio Retaliation
2008 (2014 Re-issue) - 2xLP
Between 2011 and 2017 they released every 3 years three albums so different, yet unique and each of them a masterpiece of their genre. “Culture Of Fear” is a strong album with deep conscious rap tracks, “Saudade” is deep, sensual and it just slides under your skin like a thief’s hand into an oblivious pocket. In 2017, “The Temple Of I & I” came out with very powerful reggae, dub and hip-hop vibes with another masterpiece album.
Thievery Corporation — Culture Of Fear
2011 (2014 Re-release) - 2xLP
Thievery Corporation — Saudade
2014 - LP, Black // LP, 10th Anniversary Translucent Light Blue Vinyl, Limited Edition, Signed (2024)
Thievery Corporation — The Temple Of I & I
2017 - 2xLP
2017 also brought to light a live album, recorded on 5 March 2017 at The Roundhouse in London, sporting one amazing concert, but more about this later.
The following year, “Treasures from the Temple” saw daylight, the eleventh studio album bringing to the spotlight some dubplates and remixes and unheard songs made during the recording sessions for “The Temple Of I & I”. “San San Rock” and the TC Remix of “Letter to the Editor” take the spotlight, in my opinion.
In line with their previous albums, in 2020 they also released “Symphonik”. La creme de la creme, the best songs they have ever produced, reworked to perfection alongside an orchestra, to their most refined form, in the pinnacle of their career.
Thievery Corporation — Live From London Roundhouse 2017
2017 - 3xLP
Thievery Corporation — Treasures From The Temple
2018 - 2xLP
Thievery Corporation — Symphonik
2020 - 2xLP
The Concerts
And after talking so much after their live albums and their performances, I should also note the great occasions I had to see them perform live.
The first time it was at a concert venue in a park in Sofia, back on the 2nd of June 2018. I went there with Paula and Catalina, and boy we stood front row, only a few meters from the stage. What a treat, definitely worth the seven hours drive one way there!
Four years later, on 27th of June 2018, I had a new occasion to see them, in Bucharest, at Arenele Romane. A show that was as good, if not better than what I remembered, definitely worth to elbow my way to the first row, again next to my bestest friend Paula.
The reason why I am talking this much about their performance is because they don’t only write legendary music, but also their concerts are literal works of art. They bring together so many people coming from so many cultural backgrounds that they do indeed put the “world” in “world music”.
Although only Rob Garza and Eric Hilton are “official” band members, their live gigs always include a handful of extremely good instrument players:
- Jeff Franca - drums
- Rob Myers - sitar, guitar
- Frank Orrall - percussion, drums, vocals
- Dan Africano - bass
- Ashish Vyas - bass
These amazing guys are usually accompanied on tour by some great vocalists, who are performing some of my favourite songs (and many more):
- Natalia Clavier - Claridad, Water Under the Bridge
- Loulou Ghelichkhani - Voyage Libre, Décollage
- Racquel Jones - Letter to the Editor
- Mr. Lif - History, Ghetto Matrix
- Puma Ptah - Amerimacka, Warning Shots (with Racquel and Mr. Lif), True Sons of Zion
The Signed Records
Everyone that’s been reading me knows how much I love signed records. I even have a dedicated section for the ones I’ve got. Luckily, with the help of Eric Hilton’s shop, I got lucky enough to get a signed copy of The Mirror Conspiracy, one of the Anniversary edition of Saudade, and one copy of Eric Hilton’s solo album Infinite Everywhere, which is not only very in line with the chill Thievery albums, it’s a masterpiece on its own. I hope to be able to meet the team at their concert in July and get a record with all their signatures. That would be cool!
At the end, there’s a lot that can be said by Thievery Corporation. If you get the chance, see them perform, it’s the least I can say. They are a duo, a band, an entire world. They are one of my favourite artists and performing acts and it’s always a pleasure to listen to them, to see them live, or simply to look at the cover of one of their albums and hope for a better world, a world that truly deserves them.
