Surprise Chef - Education & Recreation (2022 Big Crown Vinyl LP)

Surprise Chef - Education & Recreation | Vinyl LP - Big Crown Records (BC126-LP, black vinyl)

Surprise Chef make the kind of music that sounds like it should be playing under the opening credits of a film you half remember. The Melbourne instrumental group have spent the last few years perfecting a warm, cinematic soul sound, all deep bass, patient grooves, spidery guitar and the glow of Rhodes and vibraphone, drawing on the library music and soundtrack soul of the sixties and seventies without ever tipping into pastiche. Education & Recreation, from 2022, is their first album for Big Crown, the New York label that is home to El Michels Affair and a roster of modern soul and funk royalty, and it is the record that carried them to a wider international audience. There are no vocals and no wasted motion. Tracks like "Money Music" and "Suburban Breeze" set a mood and hold it, the band locked into a groove and content to let it breathe, while Erica Tucceri's flute adds a lightness to the middle of the record. It is music to score your own day to, understated, soulful and quietly addictive.

For an Australian instrumental band to sign to Big Crown is no small thing, and Surprise Chef have earned it, building a devoted following through a run of albums that started on Mr Bongo before this move. They are among the most visible names in a rich Melbourne scene, and their success abroad is a reminder of how much good music is being made a long way from the traditional centres. The album was recorded at the band's own College of Knowledge studio in Melbourne, on Wurundjeri land, and cut at Masterdisk in New York. This copy is the standard black vinyl edition on Big Crown Records, catalogue number BC126-LP.