LJWorld.com

When it comes to playing in bands, Eddie Roberts isn't averse to lead singers. He doesn't believe that they're all preening prima donnas.

"I've just never found a singer who seemed to be on the same wavelength," says Roberts, guitarist, tambourine player and founder of The New Mastersounds.

"Plus, it's kind of nice to be lyricless."

For seven years, his British band has turned its fondness for instrumental tunes into a full-time adventure - with five albums of material to show for it.

"The advantage is the music can actually be the voice," he says. "It kind of speaks for itself. You can sing through your instruments. The disadvantage is commercial success, which I probably wouldn't want, anyway."

What makes the band's singer-free situation rather atypical is the type of instrumentals the group prefers.

The BBC once asked, "How can a collection of (mostly) pasty-faced Northerners produce with such authority the dusty funk grooves of the early '70s? It doesn't matter - they just do."

The New Mastersounds have mastered the sounds of post-Motown acts such as The Meters, The Brothers Johnson and "Bitches Brew"-era Miles Davis.

"Even though we're playing American music, it's gone through this British filter. The Americans sound a bit slicker, whereas we've got a bit more angst - almost a little bit punky. It must be the misery of living in Britain," Roberts says.

The band spent most of this week holed up in a cabin in the mountains surrounding Boulder, Colo., before embarking on its latest tour of the states. Roberts says he loves the isolation and beauty of the locale, apart from the lack of e-mail access and cell phone reception.

But reception hasn't exactly been a problem when the Leeds-based act tours America.

"To come out here and play and people already get it, it's very refreshing for us," says Roberts, who will see Kansas for the first time when arriving for opening night of Wakarusa.

For the last three years, the Mastersounds - whose lineup has expanded to include guitar, bass, drums, organ and sax/flute - have been frequent visitors to the states, performing at numerous festivals. Despite having almost nothing in common with Phish or The Grateful Dead, the ensemble is being embraced by America's jam band scene.

"It's very refreshing to see (the jam band culture) is based around good music rather than a specific genre. In the U.K. and Europe, it's very genre-based and style-based. It's kind of whatever is supposedly hip and trendy at the time."

"It seems that the audience itself is leading the scene here," he says.

Roberts explains that the throwback style favored by The New Mastersounds is popular in Leeds, yet not so much by other live musicians.

"There's this whole DJ scene where people collect late '60s/early '70s funk records and put on parties," Roberts says. "Really, I've been out and around that music three nights a week for the last 15 years. I pretty much live and breathe it."