Surprise Chef

Surprise Chef is an Australian instrumental quintet. Their musical M.O. is creating and evoking moods. No more, no less. They accomplish it by effortlessly juxtaposing inspiration from jazz-funk, exploitation and cop soundtracks, sound library records, vintage soul, and hip-hop in their quest to attain pure groove. Their first two albums, All News Is Good News and Daylight Savings, appeared in 2020 from College of Knowledge Records via Mr. Bongo and won notice globally. Their 2021 remix EP, Masters at Work & Harvey Sutherland: Remixes, was enthusiastically embraced by critics and DJs. They toured the North American and European festival circuits in 2022, exponentially expanding their fan base. The quintet signed to Big Crown Records to release their third album, Education & Recreation, that October. Surprise Chef are based in Coburg, just outside Melbourne in the province of Victoria. Their members include guitarist Lachlan Stuckey, keyboardist Jethro Curtin, bassist Carl Lindeberg, drummer Andrew Congues, and producer/composer/percussionist/ multi-instrumentalist Hudson Whitlock. They formed in 2017 and worked together writing, arranging, and producing demos at College of Knowledge, a shared art space in Coburg. (It shares its names with the record label run by Stuckey and Curtin.) The musicians, all serious crate diggers, got together and discovered many shared influences. They developed their sound apart from the Melbourne music scene, in quiet isolation, as no one was making music of the same stripe as Surprise Chef. Their approach is naturally textured and spacious as they record everything live to tape. After learning to write, record, and perform together, SC cut their debut single "Stuart Little's Car" b/w "D.A. Stab Wound" and released it through College of Knowledge. The former wove funky breaks, vanguard tenor sax (courtesy of guest Max Dowling), eerie keyboards, and souled-out guitar and bass vamps. The latter half of 2019's "Where's the Cream" b/w "Do You Even Know What a Passport Is?" threaded psychedelic soul into spacious beats. They cut All News Is Good News, their debut long-player, over a few days at their Coburg studio in 2019. Across nine originals, SC channeled inspirations, from Curtis Mayfield and Richard Evans to Janko Nilovic, Isaac Hayes, and Neil Ardley. They enlisted friends to play reeds and winds in the sessions. Karate Boogaloo's Henry Jenkins recorded and produced it, and Stuckey provided the album art. They pressed 500 copies on College of Knowledge. Playing constantly in the evenings, they sold out in two weeks. Stuckey and Curtin also sent a few copies to Mr. Bongo in London. They played it in-store daily and got a great response. When they tried to reorder, they were informed it was sold-out. The British label licensed the album, then repressed and re-released it in July 2020, during the middle of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the band had completed work on Daylight Savings. Because of Mr. Bongo's global distribution network, All News Is Good News made it into stores and got some global press. Further, European radio and club DJs including Gilles Peterson hyped it. Though SC had just released a record, Mr. Bongo assured the group that striking while the iron was hot was essential. The pandemic had created a constant demand for new music and media. The label issued the Jenkins-produced Daylight Savings in November. The gamble paid off. Reviews from magazines, websites, and on podcasts celebrated the band's summertime soul-jazz-funk excursions and breakbeat architectures. Tracks such as the driving "Deadlines," the spy film-esque "New Ferrari," the trippy funk in the title track, and the sweeping, percussion-driven fusion buoying "Leave It Don't Take It," had reviewers making comparisons to everyone from early George Duke and Lalo Schifrin to Weather Report and David Axelrod. They toured Australia and played a few European clubs across 2021. That October, Mr. Bongo capitalized on the band's dance club popularity. They issued Masters at Work & Harvey Sutherland: Remixes. It contained three different mixes of "Crayfish Caper" and three of "New Ferrari" by Sutherland. The record exploded in dance clubs and on late-night mix shows at European radio. In 2022, Surprise Chef toured internationally, playing festivals in England, the U.S., Canada, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. The shows consisted of new material and a host of long, impromptu jams that brought punters out to dance. In October, Mr. Bongo released the band's third long-player, Education & Recreation. In the interim, SC's musical vision expanded exponentially, especially in terms of composition. Opener "A1 Bakery Pledge of Allegiance" simultaneously channeled the Meters and Monk Higgins, while "Velodrome" wove guitars, synths, and breaks into a laid-back, humid, summertime groove orgy. "Suburban Breeze" wed jazz flutes to dubwise bass, reverb, cumbia, and soul. The entire offering was constructed to offer more sounds, space, and sumptuously lush textures to laid-back grooves. The set was greeted by its most consistent -- and abundant -- run of positive reviews. The quintet played shows near the end of the year and returned to releasing music in early 2023. The psych-tinged "Pash Rash" appeared in January, followed in February by the trippy soul of "Rosemary Hemphill," and the funky fusion of "Friendship Theme" in March.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo