Surprise Chef’s new single, ‘Iconoclasts‘, is the embodiment of “cinematic soul.” Moody and spacious instrumentation that at times is met with heavy drum beats that sends the listener on a trip through their mind. Surprise Chef pulls influence from the likes of David Axelrod to The Soulquarians and puts their own distinct flavour on it all.
– NZ SHOWS ANNOUNCED!
Surprise Chef announced their debut New Zealand tour this week, in support of the band’s upcoming third album, Education & Recreation.
The tour kicks off at Auckland’s Tuning Fork on Friday October 21, before heading to the capital on Saturday October 22 for a special show at Meow as part of the Wellington Jazz Festival.
Tickets for all shows are on sale now HERE
Surprise Chef are Melbourne’s cinematic soul journeymen, producing moody shades of instrumental jazz-funk inspired by 1970’s soul and legendary composer/producers like David Axelrod and Isaac Hayes.
The band’s live shows are odysseys as they dig into the funkier side of jazz crates and sample material that forms the foundation of hip hop, all through the lens of five musicians from Australia who are deeply committed to representing the ongoing story of soul music.
Last week, Surprise Chef announced their debut album on Big Crown, Education & Recreation, with a smash of a new single, “Money Music.” A bassline driven mid tempo tune that catches you from the first note and carries you through all the gorgeous changes. Piano, vibraphone, and guitar trade places over a watertight drum track that builds up, drops down, builds up again, and changes to half time to take it all home.
Surprise Chef’s music is based on evoking mood; their vivid arrangements utilise time and space to build soundscapes that invite the listener into their world. The quintet’s distinct sound pulls from 70s film scores, the funkier side of jazz, and the samples that form the foundation of hip hop. They push the boundaries of instrumental soul and funk with their own approach honed by countless hours in the studio, studying the masters, and perhaps most importantly, the “tyranny of distance” that dictates a unique perspective to their music.
Hailing from just outside of Melbourne, Australia their first two albums, All News Is Good News and Daylight Savings amassed a die-hard fanbase and brought their sound from their home studio to every corner of the globe. The band is now signed to Big Crown Records, joining a lineage of contemporary and classic sounds that have influenced Surprise Chef’s music since their formation in 2017.
Surprise Chef is Lachlan Stuckey on guitar, Jethro Curtin on keys, Carl Lindeberg on bass, Andrew Congues on drums, and Hudson Whitlock—the latest member who does it all from percussion to composing to producing. Their self proclaimed “moody shades of instrumental jazz-funk” have a bit of everything: punchy drums, infectious keys, rhythm guitar you might hear on a Studio One record, and flute lines that could be from a Blue Note session. But when you step back and take in the entirety of their sound and approach, you’ll hear and see a group greater than the sum of its parts.
In many ways Surprise Chef embodies the idiom “the benefits of limits.” They were limited in that there weren’t many people making or talking about instrumental jazz/soul/funk in Southeast Australia, let alone putting out records. This left them to develop their sound and approach in a kind of creative isolation where a small circle of friends and like-minded musicians fed off each other. “Being in Australia, being so far away, we only get glimpses and glances of this music’s origins,” Stuckey says. “But hearing a label like Big Crown was one of the first times we realised you could make fresh, new soul music that wasn’t super retro or just nostalgic.”
