About

The Cosmic Game is the fourth studio album by American electronic music duo Thievery Corporation, released on February 22, 2005, by ESL Music. After the success of their previous album The Richest Man in Babylon (2002), the guest artists on The Cosmic Game are of higher profile. The album features various styles of music including club, future-bossa, breaks, rock, and more. — (via Label)

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The ingredients - electronic beats, dub, soft Brazilian tones, sitars, and women singing in foreign languages - are entirely the same, but Thievery Corporation have never sounded so genuine. Despite the same old sound and a busy release schedule leading up to it, The Cosmic Game comes across as fresh as a debut and surprisingly indifferent toward being the in thing. What it is is music for music's sake, all laid out with the utmost care, giving listeners a fully thought-out album that makes the "forward" button on your player purposeless. 

Effortlessly flowing from the indie-grooving "Marching the Hate Machines (Into the Sun)" with the Flaming Lips to reggae to samba to psychedelia and beyond, the album is trimmed of all fat. Instrumentals with clever grooves sometimes overstayed their welcome on previous Thievery albums, but here they're whittled down to interludes when need be and positioned as chillout segues between the more striking numbers. 

The druggy, Perry Farrell-inna-reggae-style "Revolution Solution" is one of these stunners, but the superstars don't own all the highlights. As dank, Jamaican-flavored horns echo into the distance, siren Sista Pat lures listeners into the deep world of "Wires and Watchtowers" while soulful crooner Notch takes things uptown on the cool "Amerimacka" before the Corp turn the tune into one of their stickiest dub outings yet.

The pleasant "The Heart's a Lonely Hunter" deserves mention because David Byrne guests on vocals, and while it's very good, it's the most forgettable number on this outing. The track brings a very slight reminder of when Thievery Corporation have let ambition trump the meaningful and meaty, but the otherwise purposeful and certain Cosmic Game is so darkly delicious you have to admit it's their masterwork. — (via AllMusic)

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The downtempo duo's latest features vocal collaborations from David Byrne and Wayne Coyne. Marking an invigorating return to form for the Thievery Corporation production team of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, The Cosmic Game assembles a stellar cast of guest vocalists and collaborators to help the duo craft their most focused and captivating work to date.

And though the Thievery Corp.'s trademark confluence of chilled trip-hop, time-stretched dub, and casual musical globetrotting initially appears as tranquil as ever, beneath this false serenity churns an undercurrent of political anger, disillusionment and alienation that helps charge the album with enhanced fervor and vitality. — (via Pitchfork)

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When the Thievery Corporation debuted back in 1997 with Sounds From The Thievery Hi Fi, they bewitched headz from Washington to Watford with their dub-wise voodoo and slick downtempo grooves.

Following two more solid albums (The Mirror Conspiracy, The Richest Man in Babylon), a couple of tasteful compilations (Sounds From the Verve Hi-Fi, Outernational Sound) and a pair remix collections the duo now present what is undoubtedly their best work since The Mirror Conspiracy back in 2000.

In recent interviews the immaculately dressed duo have spoken of being informed and enlightened by various conspiracy theories and "mind-opening literature".

Perhaps this was the motive behind the subversive shtick of the first single from the album, "Revolution Solution" - a steadfast blend of soporific dub-grooves matched to the vocals of Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell. While not exactly an inflammatory call to arms, it reminded us perfectly of their pair's gorgeously orotund sound.

Once again Thievery Corporation demonstrate agrandeur and stylistic prowess that remains all but peerless in today's saturated world of downtempo electronica. — (via BBC Music)

Vinyl Tracklist
A1 Marching The Hate Machines (Into The Sun) – feat. The Flaming Lips
A2 Warning Shots – feat. Sleepy Wonder & Gunjan
A3 Revolution Solution – feat. Perry Farrell
A4 The Cosmic Game
A5 Satyam Shivam Sundaram – feat. Gunjan
B1 Amerimacka – feat. Notch
B2 Ambicion Eterna – feat. Verny Varela
B3 Pela Janela – feat. Gigi Rezende
B4 Sol Tapado – feat. Patrick de Santos

C1 The Heart's A Lonely Hunter – feat. David Byrne
C2 Holographic Universe
C3 Doors Of Perception – feat. Gunjan
C4 Wires And Watchtowers – feat. Sista Pat
D1 The Supreme Illusion – feat. Gunjan
D2 The Time We Lost Our Way – feat. LouLou Ghelickhani
D3 A Gentle Dissolve

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Label: Primary Wave Music
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Gatefold
Reissued: 2025 / Originally Released: 2005
Genre: Electronic, Latin
Style: Dub, Downtempo

File under: Electronic // Downtempo
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