In music, as in life, a decade is a significant period of time. After 10 years devoted to any particular project, one tends to reflect on results — on highs, lows and lessons learned.

As they turn 10 and release their third album, Deportation, Toronto’s LAL have much to consider and celebrate. Since forming in 1998 when producer Nicholas “Murr” Murray decided he wanted to work with vocalists and “go outside of the regular boom-bap hip-hop thing” he was known for as a member of Da Grassroots, and singer Rosina Kazi had “really started to discover my voice,” the band have covered a great deal of ground — musically, politically and literally.

LAL’s two previous albums, 2002’s Corners and 2004’s Warm Belly High Power, were much praised for their amalgam of downtempo, soul, hip-hop and jazz as well as South Asian instrumentation and influences. The band have performed and toured extensively — even opening for folk/jazz great Terry Callier at London’s revered Jazz Café in 2006 — and have numerous awards to show for their efforts.

And now, LAL have made the strongest, richest and most developed album of their career. With its adventurous arrangements, warm melodies and tight production, Deportation is the product of a band who are comfortable in their collective skin. Through years of swelling and diminishing in numbers, LAL has now evolved into a core songwriting trio that now includes bassist Ian de Souza. His versatility and jazz influences clearly add much to the group.

“Playing with Ian is profoundly amazing because he comes from a completely different scene than we do and we’ve been able to learn so much about being musicians through him,” Kazi says. “We always wondered why Ian played with us, but now we know.”

She chuckles, but it’s clear that the trio have a common understanding that lent itself beautifully to the recording of Deportation. Though it’s LAL’s most complex album to date, it’s also their most relaxed and fluent.

“A lot of what we recorded for Deportation was done together in the studio; there’s very little editing involved in this record,” Murray explains.

“A lot of the end results were basically about me renting keyboards and synths from Paul’s Boutique, and us hanging out with Ian over a bottle of wine at our place while working. A lot of it was also people just dropping by, doing their part, and us keeping those recordings as they were. It’s very different than the editing fiasco of Warm Belly, High Power where we took the Pink Floyd approach of moving tracks and parts around.”

The new album — which had its genesis in the three-month period Murray and Kazi spent living and soaking up influences while crashing and creating at friends’ places in London, England during the winter of 2005-06 — features the contributions of more than 20 guests. The impressive array of performers includes LAL’s long-time touring percussionist Rakesh Tewari, friend and PTR label boss Moonstarr, guitarist Nilan Perera, horn player Bryden Baird, and vocalists such as Zaki Ibrahim and Shawn Hewitt.

Like the members of LAL, most of these guests share a commitment to art, community and social change. LAL is rooted in this understanding, and their work has always been explicitly political.  
“Being in London and seeing all of the surveillance cameras that were put up, and how people were being treated, the classism and racism there, influenced this record so much, as well as having two friends deported from Canada,” says Kazi.

“You know,” she continues, “coming from a background of listening to house music, techno and hip-hop, there was always social commentary. Honestly, I’m really disappointed with current dance music because the production value has gone down, and where is the content? It was always so inspiring to dance to a tune that said something and I think we’re trying to carry that heritage along.”
This may come as a surprise to anyone who has heard LAL’s CDs, but not seen their live show. On stage, they raise the tempos and take each song somewhere new.

“You can’t sell beer at a bar unless people are dancing, right?” Murray quips.

“Really, we don’t even try to recreate the albums,” de Souza adds. “It’s more about taking the mood of a particular piece and morphing it. In a way, having to reinvent the wheel for whatever gig we’re doing has become the addiction for me. It’s amazing because it stops a song from becoming a museum piece.” EMAIL DBENSON@EYEWEEKLY.COM