There's a deep valley between the rival fortresses of traditional salsa and contemporary Latin pop – territory that Richmond, Va.-based Bio Ritmo claims as its very own.

The nine-member band hails from the early '90s, when its founders were barely out of their teens. With seven albums now under their collective belts, the sound is as sophisticated as it is fun.

What we think of as traditional salsa is a stew of dance rhythms from Cuba and Puerto Rico born in New York City in the late '60s and early '70s. The traditional sounds blend steady percussion with solo voices answered by short choruses and spiky blasts of trumpet and trombone.

Bio Ritmo goes well beyond this basic mix, while remaining true to it. They'll show us how at Lula Lounge tomorrow night, as they tour their new album Bionico.

The group travels the old-fashioned way, with a van and a U-Haul, hitting towns large and small across North America.

"Everyone's like family," says Bio Ritmo pianist Marlysse Simmons over her cell phone, surrounded by her bandmates on the road to Chicago last week.

"Right now, it feels pretty good, but ask me again in about two weeks, and I may want to scream," she laughs.

Simmons barely knew what she was getting into when she auditioned to replace the band's original piano player six years ago. She had 20 years of classical piano lessons in her fingers, as well as a love of Brazilian bossa nova (which she performs as Magrela Rose).

But she hasn't looked back, becoming one of Bio Ritmo's creative influences. Lead force, vocalist Rei Alvarez, credits her for being the inspiration for the Six Million Dollar Man theme found on the new album's "Bionic Boogaloo."

"I was playing this little riff during a sound check," recalls Simmons. "Rei – and he has done this many times – said, oh, let's use this somewhere, let's make a song out of that."

The piano player says a lot of the band's songs come out of small ideas that the group then develops during rehearsals.

"The lyrics are always Rei's," says Simmons, "but it's the whole band that will complete it ... It can be a tedious process."

The results are anything but.

There's a 10th, untitled track on the new album that probably says more about the joys of unbridled creativity than any Latin-music disc on the market right now. The 5 1/2-minute paean to stream-of-consciousness jamming starts off as an off-the-rocker tribute to the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," taking us through scat, art pop and even reggae along its mad trajectory.

Yet the salsa roots never really vanish. That's what you want when there is a dance floor nearby.

By: John Terauds