Nine piece Soul / Funk powerhouse The Bamboos return with their first new music of 2021, an infectious cover of the Black Box 1989 Italo-House hit “Ride On Time”. More a reinvention than cover version (as the band have accomplished on numerous occasions in the past with songs by everyone from James Blake, Kings Of Leon to London Grammar) where the tight, uptempo drums lift the three piece horn section, which carries the song’s hook. Bamboos stellar vocalist Kylie Auldist does justice to Loleatta Holloway’s vocal as it was sampled in the original, in one of pop music’s most famous misquotations. The track has already built a buzz with a seven inch vinyl release selling out in a week in December, making this a certified DJ weapon, wherever the party finds itself to be right now.
“We locked ourselves up in this country house to record the new album” recalls Bamboos guitarist, leader and main songwriter Lance Ferguson. “We were hanging out in a barn that we had designated as our late night “Rec Room”, listening to some ‘90s music as we often do, when “Ride On Time” came on. I’m pretty sure it was our bass player, Yuri Pavlinov, who mooted the idea - and then we literally ran back into the house/studio and started to work it out. It was really just some early-hours-of-the-morning fun, and now there are press releases and a video clip. Who knew!?”
The band is also announcing their tenth studio album, titled Hard Up. Much of the album was recorded communally over a week just prior to the pandemic at a sprawling country house just outside the (coincidentally named) town of Lancefield, north of Melbourne. The approach of making an album outside the recording studio, steeped in such legendary tales as the ‘Stones at Villa Nellcôte or Radiohead’s ‘O.K Computer’ St Catherine’s Court sessions has made it the groups most collaborative yet, solidifying even more their seemingly telepathic musical interplay.
