Sounds of the city

Just what is the sound of Atlanta? Through the years, everything from blues to country to gospel, bluegrass to boogie rock to hip-hop, has come to define a segment of the city’s musical life — all of it aural evidence of the people who’ve settled here: the rural blacks and mountain whites, and their descendants.

But what about the other, younger Atlanta, where the demographics reflect a more complex story of cross-country transplants and immigrants, and those defined by the monoculture of prosperous suburbs and once-backwoods areas long since encroached upon? These groups define the city today as much as any previous population shift or influx. And if this current stew translates into some identifiable music, it’s easy to imagine that it sounds something like fast-rising local act Aerial.

Of course, electronic trance/pop of the kind created by Aerial has never been particularly associated with Atlanta. But lots of young Atlantans are getting to know Aerial, connecting with the group’s kinetic live shows and urban-tribe spirituality. And with a sound that combines the latest in club beats with hazy, soulful vocals, reggae-style chanting and saxophone skronking, Aerial is shaping up to be the quintessential 21st- century beat of rootless cosmopolitanism.

Meet Aerial. Its members are relaxing around a set of couches in the low-key lounge of Midtown’s Apres Diem restaurant, cracking jokes, sipping drinks, talking business. The current discussion involves the new video they’re shooting in conjunction with Aerial’s first full-length CD, Chasing Thoughts, which comes out this week.

They look like the cast of “Friends” as imagined by Benetton’s advertising department. There’s MichaelAngelo Wolfe — the group’s bald-headed bassist, male vocalist/chanter, percussionist and often-shirtless lead dancer — a 29-year-old African-American born and raised in Chicago. And Jeff Blackwell, the 26-year-old saxophonist whose musical roots go back to the school marching band in lilywhite Alpharetta. Then there’s Coleen McCall, Aerial’s 24-year-old lead vocalist, a petite, mocha-complexioned Jamaican.

Rounding out the pack are Shawn Smith, 25, and Heath Cummings, 26, who together handle the group’s beats, electronics and keyboards. Smith has the pale, sleek look of a recovering new wave kid, and he cops to a serious Depeche Mode obsession in his Marietta youth. Cummings came to his current vocation through a love of hip-hop, which was only slightly unusual for a white country boy from Villa Rica, Ga.

There’s not one among them whose appearance screams out a particular association with their city of residence. And that in itself is probably the most indigenous thing about Aerial. “It’s more of a nationally, or internationally, conscious Southern,” Blackwell says of the band’s local color. “That’s what we are.”

Aerial is also the leading light among a group of local acts, including Drums & Effects and slowEarth, to blend live rock instrumentation with electronic dance music. Since forming in 1999 from the ashes of Athens funk/fusion band Sputnik, the group rose meteorically to the front of the pack due to its uncanny ability to attract and impress crowds in just about any setting. Not only places like Nomenclature Museum and Karma — hip, stylish joints that would seem Aerial’s natural habitat — but also in indie-rock havens like The Earl and Echo Lounge, in traditional rock rooms like the Star Bar and Smith’s Olde Bar, even in the broad daylight of Music Midtown, where their Locals Only Stage set last year scorched across the cement and asphalt.

The key is not so much the music — though Aerial’s combination of progressive sounds, propulsive beats and soaring melodies presents a potent combination for the raising of ears, feet and spirits. Unlike just about any other electronic-based group, from the Chemical Brothers on down, Aerial is first and foremost an eye-popping live act. They frequently perform with a backdrop of video projections, but the members’ own on-stage visuals could hold their own. As Cummings and Smith scamper in back, tweaking the output of samplers and sequencers, Aerial’s frontline offers a study of contrasting and dynamic movement. Blackwell sways and flails his horn, feet planted, stage left. Wolfe, when he’s not strapped to a bass or djembe drum, contorts and extends his body in an acrobatic romp of liberation, stage right. McCall, meanwhile, stands virtually still, or moves in slow motion, beautifully anchoring the motion front and center.

“That’s what’s helped us go from playing in clubs to playing rock venues,” Blackwell says. “We have that live performance aspect. If you bring a normal electronic band up there, they’ll bring a laptop, throw on some crazy glasses and that’s all you get. Well, Smith’s Olde Bar ain’t going to want to book that kind of band. But we bring a performance.”

With electronic acts, flashy imagery tends to help deflect from the fact that there’s not much happening on stage beyond a few mouse clicks. But with Aerial, the performance centers on the actual creation of the music. The live show incorporates pre-produced sounds, of course. But with Smith and Cummings’ MIDI-driven manipulation, even typically static beats and samples are afforded room for improvisation and interaction with live instruments.

“Why drop actually playing an instrument because you have technology?” Wolfe says. “It’s more enjoyable for us to interact with each other and get into it, over just sitting there and pressing a button.”

Aerial’s ability to inspire on stage connects the group to Atlanta in a way that more distinguished local electronic acts haven’t managed. While Atlantans like Chris Brann, Richard Devine and Scott Herren are hailed as pop stars or mad geniuses throughout the world for their computer-generated recordings, none of them can pack a hometown club the way Aerial can — let alone muster much name recognition on the street.

“They stay in their studios and bang out tracks, and they get it out everywhere except for ground zero,” says Smith. “And we’re trying to do the opposite; we’re trying to get a crowd going in Atlanta and then venture out. Plus, they’re individuals and we’re five people. You can’t go out and play by yourself. It takes all of us to get that vibe about us.”

Oddly, Aerial might be the rarest kind of electronic act — one that actually sounds better live than on record. While the new Chasing Thoughts CD is far superior in construction and fidelity to the group’s debut EP, 2000’s Fallen Angel, neither has fully captured the band’s in-person energy. Chasing Thoughts boasts moments when the music threatens to transcend the limitations of the compact disc — the explosive opening track “Never”; the cry freedom of “This One” — but the album too often hangs in a smooth, mid-tempo comfort zone that has more in common with Madonna’s pleasingly tame William Orbit productions than Aerial’s live sound, which, at times, approaches the dubby post-punk/free-jazz grinds of Bill Laswell.

The vibe around Aerial remains even when the group isn’t on stage, even when it’s just five individuals hanging out over drinks, talking shop. The members know very well the potential for power and elevation in their music, and they worship it with a wide-eyed spirituality that’s downright hippie-ish in its utter lack of cynicism. Aerial, according to the band’s retrofitted acronym, stands for “a euphoric ride into another life.”

“We love each other so much that we want everyone else to experience our love,” Wolfe says. “The club scene is all about love, especially in Atlanta. So our whole feeling comes across pretty well, because the people who come to clubs want love, and they’re all about giving love.”

Whether you agree with such a rosy picture of modern clubbing, there’s no denying that Aerial connects with the people — not only with the peace-and-love Gen Y rave-kids, but even with the stone-faced indie-rock crowds and the dolled-up, see-and-be-scenesters of Atlanta’s dance clubs. And as anyone who’s tried to build consensus in a city as sprawling as Atlanta knows, that’s no easy feat.

roni.sarig@creativeloafing.com

Aerial plays a CD release party, Sat., Feb. 23, at the Roxy, 3110 Roswell Road. DJs Keiran and Starboy spin; the New Natives, Mojo 99 and Atticus Fault also perform. 8 p.m. $12.50-$25. 404-249-6400. www.ticketmaster.com.??