Format: Vinyl LP, CD, Digital
Web: www.hopestreetrecordings.com/woodenboy

It’s soul music, baby, but not as we know it. The backbeat and the handclaps are still there and the horns still sound. The bass bumps, the organ screams and the guitars still twang, but the singer has left the room. Everything is shades of blue. This is soul music for the after hours. For the solitary dancers and the lonely hearts. The soundtrack to solitary headlights on a midnight highway. What to call it? Who cares! Can you dance to it? Just try not to. No one’s telling you to throw your hands up in the air, but no one would be surprised if you did. It’s dark here, so you can do your own thing.

Wooden Boy was recorded by The Cactus Channel -- a ten piece band from Melbourne, Australia -- all born in the 90s and raised on the internet. Yet somehow, this astonishing follow up to last year's rave-reviewed debut, Haptics, sounds like it could have been recorded in the 1970s, or possibly in the distant future. A timeless, placeless cinematic odyssey, Wooden Boy could have been an alternate soundtrack to Ghost Dog -- if Lalo Schifrin and the Meters were collaborating on the RZA's score. Or maybe Wooden Boy was what happened when Lars Von Trier got invited to direct an episode of Soul Train. What any of it may actually mean is left to the listener's imagination.

Funk aficionados will hear shades of New York on this record, echoes of El Michel’s taking on Wu Tang, the influence of Budos and Menehan et al. But this is the Generation Z version; both more tempestuous and more introverted. Recorded analog in the digital era, presented faceless in the celebrity era, inexplicably ambiguous in the soundbite era, is this the album the world needs right now? Undoubtedly yes. In a world where the NSA can read the text message that dumped you, what does a person need more than sad soul music from the future? Wooden Boy, baby, Wooden Boy.

PRAISE FOR HAPTICS by THE CACTUS CHANNEL (debut 2012 album):

•	"Hot-to-trot... an embryonic version of the Meters or the Dap Kings" - THE AUSTRALIAN (four stars)
•	"Tightly raw soul, rambling deep-funk jams and organ-driven party mash-ups" - THE AGE
•	"Infectiously funky sounds... a horn-fuelled, butt-shaking affair" - TRIPLE J HOME & HOSED
•	"Old-fashioned, gritty soul music – by a bunch of white teenagers from Melbourne" - THE MONTHLY
•	"Album Of The Week" - RTR PERTH, PBS-FM, SYN-FM, 2SER + EASTSIDE RADIO, RTR PERTH

FREE Single Download

The Cactus Channel - Black Flag and Lady Bountiful

Original version appears on his 2012 album "Maraqopa". 

Enjoy

Damien Jurado - Maraqopa (Ole Smokey's Extd Edit)

Torn Sail - Birds

Celestial Blues by the Souljazz Orchestra

A little track whipped up by the TomGirls one Chilly Melbourne Eve, from the warmth of the rehearsal bedroom.

My Lovers

Available 9th June on vinyl LP, CD and download/stream on Mr Bongo https://www.mrbongo.com/products/gaby-hernandez-spirit-reflection-vinyl-lp

‘Spirit Reflection’ is the third album LP from Los Angeles singer-songwriter Gaby Hernandez. Blissful layers of instrumentation, electronics, vocal harmonies and folkloric percussion intertwine with west coast feel to create a unique, beautiful and multi-layered record. In our opinion this is a future classic, and an 'album' in the truest sense of the word.

‘Spirit Reflection’ features a stellar line-up of LA talent; jazz star Kamasi Washington, Stuart Howard (AKA Lapalux), Kelis and Gaslamp killer collaborator Dexter Story, plus Ninja Tune, Plug Research and Soul Jazz artist Carlos Niño aka Ammoncontact, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Gifted & Blessed all accompany Gaby, with stunning results.

Support from Gilles Peterson, Hunee, Lefto, Toshio Matsuura (U.F.O.), J-Rocc (Beat Junkies), Laurent Garnier, Osunlade, MOJO magazine, Record Collector, Nemome (BBC 6Music) and many more.

Spirit Reflection

Baobab Tree

Jungle By Night

jungle by night-Hot Mama Hot

Toxic-Yaron Herman

Now that I know
The way it goes
You gotta pay back every penny that you owe

Twelve years old
In your mama's clothes
Shut the blinds and lock up every door

And if you hear
Someone's coming near
Just close your eyes and make them disappear now

Years away
Finds me here today
On my own and knowless of my way now

So I send my friends
Gifts from where I've been
Something for the hand that never there to lend

Better keep those eyes
Climbing paradise
And don't pretend you won't reach it in the end now

Dearest dear
I know you've been near
Why'd you run, tell me why'd you disappear now

That you're not
Here with me
Seems to be the only time I can see you clearly

I may not know
How to treat or give you what you need
But I am a gentleman who says what he means now

And now I sing
Upon my knees
And praise the kindness of a gentle breeze

I see it swell
Like a story in me to tell
Told years away and past my day of dying

So you raise them up
To heaven always hell
There are nowhere to share give a hand to help some

Oh you give them away
But they'll come back to you someday
What I know I know nobody's ever there to help him

And I know it ain't fair
And if God forbid you care
It's enough to get you in a whole lot of trouble

I realize it ain't wise to idealize
Or put your life in the hands of any struggle

And every nights or ever claim to be
Never buy that freedom just ain't free now

Ella said
Sifting in the sand
Like a hymn within to help us understand

Heaven awaits
We're making our last stand
Glory bound and sparrow in our hand

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*I do not own any rights, all rights belong to its respective owners. If you have any problems, contact me, I will remove it immediately.

Devendra Banhart - Now That I Know (Misa Thing Edit) -free download on comments-

The Bamboos - Wilhelm Scream (James Blake Cover)

Available on Analog Africa No.13 - The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk
Release date: April 30th

Min We Tun So

Record label. Record shop. Film label. Since 1989.