Afrobeat is the new hotness what with re-releases of Thomas Mapfumo, a renewed focus on the work of Fela Kuti, and a blizzard of releases in the past year by neo-Afrobeat groups like Akoya and Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. Now, it might be easy to lump Nomo into this wave but there is something more going on. New Tones certainly holds a sheen of Afrobeat but that glimmer quickly disappears when you get deeper into the album and pay closer attention to the arrangements. Percussive guitar lines, thumb pianos, and syncopated cowbell does not make an album Afrobeat and Nomo is, by all rights, more a Jazz act than anything and one that pulls from a wide and diverse musical palette.

Soul, Funk, R&B, Breaks, and Afrobeat are all equally represented but all are interpreted through the lens of Jazz with a strong focus on modality, soloing, and interplay between voices during bridges and choruses. The weakly titled “New Song” is representative with the faint noir leanings of the guitar work channeling the sensibilities of James Hardway as saxophone and trumpet solos work to lay the melodic structure for the bridges leading into further solos or choruses. “If You Want” maintains the same level of soloing with Piccolo and Piedra providing a percussive backdrop ala Tony Allen. Closing the album is the sweetest track, “Sarvodaya”, with its cascading organ line that buoys a saxophone solo that flutters gently, howls as it plummets and screams as it soars all the while the arrangement maintains a quiet and meditative sense of peace in those contrasts.

New Tones easily slips onto my Best of 2006 list with its sly way of bending sounds into shapes that are at once provocative and party like. Nomo would make for one hell of a house band if the energy from this recording is any indication of their passion for their music. Grab it. Play it. You won’t have any regrets.