Rusted Root's "When I Woke" is a riotous fusion of tribal percussion, Appalachian folk, and jam-heavy rock, anchored by a spiritual pulse that feels both ancestral and futuristic. It's a sweat-soaked ceremony of sound where West African hand drums lock in with gospel-inflected vocals, hammered dulcimers shimmer like heat waves, and frontman Michael Glabicki’s sinewy yowl carries lyrics that oscillate between mysticism and protest. “Send Me on My Way,” with its yipping vocal improvisations and buoyant pan-global bounce, has become a cultural touchstone - an omnipresent, feel-good anthem heard everywhere from movie soundtracks to children's birthday parties - yet the album as a whole is far more intricate. Tracks like “Martyr” and “Cruel Sun” surge with the urgency of political folk but are soaked in deep, trance-inducing polyrhythms and psychedelic flourishes that suggest an alternate American roots music, one that reaches toward the Middle East, South America, and the communal ecstasies of drum circles and sweat lodges. It's less an album than a roving, ritualistic journey - each song a different stop along a caravan route that links the spiritual and the sonic.
Rusted Root were part of the first wave of post-hippie jam bands and perhaps the most commercially successful of ‘em all, as 1994’s When I Woke, their second record and first major label release, went platinum. In fact, the band’s popularity transcends the bonds of this planet, as their hit “Send Me on My Way” was chosen as the “wake-up” music for the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity! But we Earthlings have heard that song everywhere on our own terrestrial airwaves, from sitcoms like New Girl to movies like Ice Age. Grateful Dead-style acoustic jams, Peter Gabriel-esque chants, and Graceland-like world beats infuse this music with both heady nostalgia and forward-looking fusion; latter-day bands like The Polyphonic Spree definitely owe a debt to Rusted Root. But it’s the spiritual concerns of lead songwriter Michael Glabicki that lend When I Woke its healthy heft…this album’s got more on its mind that just having a good time (though it is all that and more!). For its long, long-awaited LP debut, we’ve had it remastered it for vinyl and pressed it up as a double-record in rust and blue sky vinyl, complete with an enclosed insert. Limited to 2500 copies…to quote another song on this album, pure “Ecstasy!”
