Jar-e's music has an infectious ethos that dissolves boundaries. It recalls soul, rock and funk; it defies categorization and it'll make you dance.

Since he started gigging at age 12, Jar-e has played in rock bands, jazz bands and duos and performed as a solo artist. For his sophomore album, Chicas Malas, he found his pace working in the style of hip-hop producers and jazz composers, writing musical sketches for the keyboards, bass, drums, guitars and horns while assembling a crew of skilled cohorts to play the parts. When each musician brings his or her personal style to the music, Jar-e explains, "the vision changes," and there's fresh energy to every intense live show. What emerges with Chicas Malas is an album that represents Jar-e more intimately than ever before.

Chicas Malas was conceived in Mexico after Jar-e's travels took him through Greece, Cuba and Britain. It's a clear product of his psyche: totally self-sufficient, self-aware and responsive to the environment and people around him. "I start as an empty vessel," Jar-e says, "and I absorb the sounds of my environment into the music."

Jar-e both relates to, and is enchanted by, the transgressive, marauding freedom fighters the "Chicas Malas" (literally translated as "bad girls") represent. "They're women that flaunt our definitions," he says. In Chicas Malas, Jar-e looks at how certain women breed love, desire and jealousy in him. He considers how "women push me past myself, away from what is safe and known." His music follows suit; he plays with key signatures, rhythm, time and tone, but the melodies maintain a singable, heartfelt charm.

While Chicas Malas was inspired in Mexico, it was born back in Jar-e's home of Asheville, NC, where Jar-e returned after his travels and convened an all-star group to help him realize his musical visions. In the year and a half since his last release, War Songs and the Muse, the band earned a reputation in the Southeast for adventurous, genuine shows that always get the crowd on its feet.

Longtime producer and friend Keith "Touch" Saunders, came down south and set up a state-of-the-art studio in a barn in the mountains to help bring that live energy to the record. While their work together on War Songs was experimental and sample-heavy, this record emphasizes the raw energy of stripped down live shows. "The thing that links all of his work is a soulfulness," says Saunders. "We definitely captured that."