BALDWIN BROTHERS
www.baldwinstyle.com

Back in 1983, when Jason Hinkle and TJ Widner were just kids, they had a code word: Baldwin. "We used it to mean someone who was in-the-know," says TJ. "It was just some in-joke. So the name really never had anything to do with those other Baldwins."

Indeed: While Alec, Billy, Stephen, and Daniel were lapping up the highlife in Hollywood, the other Baldwin Brothers were in Chicago, working out that elusive musical link between jam bands and laptop electronica. Machine music could ooze sex, they were convinced; it could have the spontaneity of a live performance but the structure of a pop song. And the results of their efforts? Voila! The brilliant Cooking with Lasers, a blend of live funk and studio-created beats that owes as much to Herbie Hancock and the JBs as it does to Kraftwerk. 

Threaded through with '70s pop culture references, from "Sanford and Son" ("Funky Junkyard") to "The Six Million Dollar Man" ("Bionic Jam"), Cooking with Lasers revives the me-decade's soul but avoids its kitsch. "Urban Tumbleweed" is a groove-driven phantasm, its vintage organ, live drums, and brass horns all but commanding your hips to move, while "That's Right" is a cut-up collage of conversation snippets and deep, hard beats. "Are You There Margaret? It's Me, God" is a sly, cool-jazz take of Judy Blume's coming-of-age novel, while "Viva Knievil" is a tribute to both the daredevil rider ("I had an Evel Knievil doll when I was younger," admits Jason) and a stripper whom the Brothers encountered on a visit to NY.

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