FIRST Friday BOOGIE - part 5

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

Backini at Go go killer

Torn Sail - Birds

This is my Remix Cover To Robin Thicke's Song "Lost Without You". Vocals Provided by: Tamara Lloyd courtesy of Tvoxsound LLC!  

Lost Without You (Featuring Tamara Lloyd)Synth Man Remix

Pre-order 12" vinyl LP & bonus 7" : smarturl.it/skinshapeLP
Bundle #1 : smarturl.it/MRREPbundle /// Bundle #2 : smarturl.it/MRREPbundle2
All platforms : smarturl.it/skinshape

Released 13 October 2014 /// Re-press 13 October 2018

Recorded, Mixed and Produced by Will Dorey (Skinshape). Also playing all guitars, bass and extra percussion. Vocals on tracks 1, 3, 4 & 6. Keyboards on tracks 1, 2, 4 & 6. 
www.facebook.com/skinshapemusic

Ivan Kormanak - Drum Kit (All Tracks) & Percussion (Tracks 3-4) 
Max Goff - Double Bass (Track 5) 
Jon Moody - Keys (Track 5) 
Anina - Vocal (Track 7) 
Aaron Paul - Vocal (Track 5) 
Ben Bell - Percussion (Track 3)

Mastered by Frank Merritt at the Carvery 
carverycuts.com

Artwork Design by James Stirzocular 
www.facebook.com/stirzoculardesign

Cover by MOW Robinson

Melting Records © 2014 
www.facebook.com/meltingrecs

Contact us: info[at]meltingrecords.com

Skinshape - Stabo feat. Anina - MR002 - (OUT NOW - Vinyl 12'' & Digital)

Her 12 Faces’, out 18th February on Inertia Recordings, is the stunning new album from producer/guitarist Lanu. Drawing on his passion for a sonic world where Beat culture collides with indie, dream pop, lounge and folk music, this solo record marks a stylistic point of departure for the prolific musician who is better known as Lance Ferguson, the composer, bandleader, lead singer and creative force behind acclaimed Australian funk outfit The Bamboos. Lanu’s vision is paired with the captivating vocals of Megan Washington for a mix of modern, kooky immediacy and timeless charm. Think the eclectic, immediate crossover appeal of Little Dragon, Feist, Emiliana Torrini, Charlotte Gainsbourg or Janelle Monae.

Ferguson has always had a clairvoyant’s sense for collaborations (the first Lanu album featured then-little-known Aloe Blacc), and he first introduced Megan Washington to his fans as the voice of The Bamboos’ 2008 hit cover version of Kings Of Leon’s “King Of The Rodeo”. 

Album opener and first single “Beautiful Trash” is one of five Washington-voiced songs on ‘Her 12 Faces’; a supreme nugget of outsider pop. Supported by spectacular animated video by Lucy Dyson (Sarah Blasko, Augie March, Gotye)

‘Her 12 Faces’ flows effortlessly between finely crafted indie-leaning pop songs and lush instrumental/electro pieces; mesmerising instrumental track “The Coral Route” takes its name from the path flown by TEAL Airways Flying Boats through the South Pacific islands in the ‘50s. It’s also a special ode to his Hawaiian-style steel guitar playing grandfather, Bill Wolfgramm, who released New Zealand’s first ever LP and a host of records during the time the Coral Route was in service. “It’s really a tribute to him – and if I had ever been able to make a tune with him it might have sounded a little like this”. 

The album closes with a French language version of “More Than This”. “Yeah it’s a Roxy Music cover. I was going for some kind of ‘Life Aquatic’ twist on this and I thought having a Frenchman doing it would be just the ticket”, says Ferguson. “When he left my house after recording I asked him, ‘What are you doing for the rest of the day?’ His response: ‘I am going to make love to my girlfriend for 24 hours’. True story.”

A perfectly pitched mix of the sentimental, the irreverent, the personal, the humorous, the acoustic and the electronic, ‘Her 12 Faces’ is set to break yet more new ground for Ferguson, whose recent work with The Bamboos, Kylie Auldist, Lyrics Born & Washo has collected widespread recognition & acclaim both here at home and abroad.


The Coral Route

These eight patches from guitarist Freddie Cowan of The Vaccines are inspired from their album tracks and his live rig, carefully recreated on the BOSS GT-100 for you to download.

Blow It Up

ROY SHIRLEY / HOLD THEM (PROD BY JOE GIBBS)

flowing 85 bpm 12524 take 1

LOVE JONES THE MUSIC

The Sweetest Thing (From the New Line Cinema film "Love Jones") [feat. Lauryn Hill]

From the forthcoming Sinkane record "Mars"

Jeeper Creeper

TM Juke -Playground Games (Feat. Alice Russell)

Friday Morning

take my time - skinshape (edit)

Slowly by Max Sedgley

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

take my time - skinshape (edit)

tommy ketchups

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