Various Artists – Sunny Side Up [Brownswood Recordings]

Morning Mari*’s album of the week is ‘Sunny Side Up‘, a project by our beloved Brownswood Recordings shining a light on Melbourne’s new musical underground!

A new generation of young, independent musicians, in share-houses and makeshift home studios, in the garages and backyard sheds of Melbourne’s suburban sprawl, have embraced a brash DIY spirit. Taking cues from soul, jazz and club culture, they’ve stamped an uninhibited style on a sun-bleached spool of influences. A snapshot of a movement that’s ready to boil over, the nine acts on ‘Sunny Side Up’ have grown out of a city free from the weight of overbearing musical traditions, where outside influences are freely re-interpreted and mashed together. A celebratory record, it’s energised by a collaborative spirit as much as by the variety of styles which it collides together.

The record documents a scene poised at saturation point, after steadily expanding since the breakout success Hiatus Kaiyote in 2012, with whom many of the record’s groups share members, friendships or studios. Nurtured by institutions like record shop Northside Records, this is an album which shows splashes of deep house, broken beat, cha-cha, samba, p-funk and soul. Unlike other cities with storied histories in jazz culture, the sound of Melbourne is free of any jazz customs to follow behind, leaving musicians free to incorporate hip hop, house or R&B. Jazz is the mindset, the output is infinitely diverse.

Recorded over a week at The Grove, a fabled house-cum-studio in the North Melbourne suburb of Coburg, nine of Melbourne’s hotly-tipped talents take the lead with their own take on a musical form rooted in jazz. Engineered & mixed by Nick Herrera (Hiatus Kaiyote, Nai Palm, 30/70), with Silentjay as musical director, the result is a colourful portrait of a scene’s potential. Sunny Side Up explores the story behind this flourishing period and shines light on some of its most compelling figures.

The personnel are drawn from a close-knit community, collectives like 30/70 and Mandarin Dreams acting as creative milieus, lending to each other’s style and influence, reflected in the fact that musicians feature multiple times across each other’s tracks on the album. Commonly ranked among the world’s most liveable cities, Melbourne has more live venues and record stores per capita than any other city. In a city as isolated from the world as Melbourne, where the scene has been largely overlooked by Australian music institutions, collaboration is second-nature to a hungry scene focused on building their own identity.

On ‘Banksia’, Phil Stroud conducts a winding spiritual meditation, the percussion virtuoso, whose cult club 12”s for Perth imprint Good Company have garnered support from DJs Bradley Zero and Anthony Naples, showing a more understated string to his bow. Dufresne, a multi-instrumentalist member of the Mandarin Dreams collective who’s toured with Sampa The Great, builds a funk-driven, horns-heavy call to the stars on ‘Pick Up / Galaxy’.

Kuzich, a drummer, beatmaker and vocalist who makes up another member of the Mandarin Dreams collective, contributes ‘There Is No Time’, a brooding, mesmeric track where bassline, horn phrases and vocal refrains are carefully layered together. Audrey Powne’s ‘Bleeding Hearts’ is soft and atmospheric, the jazz-trained vocalist and trumpet player lending an assured feel to her entry’s steady groove.

Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange probe the taut, uptempo territory between jazz fusion and club culture on ‘Powers 2 (The People)’, led by drummer Ziggy Zeitgeist of the 30/70 collective. Likewise, the energy levels in ‘Nice To See You’ by Laneous, the multi-instrumentalist and vocalist who’s been a longtime inspiration to many in the scene, are turned up to max: wild, tightly-orchestrated musicality is matched with neo-soul tipped vocals.

Silentjay, who’s released with Rhythm Section and toured with Joey Bada$$, slowly teases out the soulful, bossa nova-tinged groove of ‘Eternal / Internal Peace’. On ‘The Wake-Up’, Horatio Luna builds a disco-tinged steady builder, built around the 30/70 member’s ear-pricking bassline. Allysha Joy, 30/70 vocalist and signed to Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Records, closes out the record with an entry of deep, ruminative spiritual jazz.

Tracklist

1. Phil Stroud – Banksia
2. Dufresne – Pick Up / Galaxy
3. Kuzich – There Is No Time
4. Audrey Powne – Bleeding Hearts
5. Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange – Powers 2 (The People)
6. Laneous – Nice To See You
7. Silentjay – Eternal / Internal Peace
8. Horatio Luna – The Wake-Up
9. Allysha Joy – Orbit

Musicians / Credits:

1. Phill Stroud – ‘Banksia’
Phil Stroud – Drums, Conga, Percussion
Ziggy Zeitgeist – Loose Percussion
Jack Doepel – Rhodes
Matthew Hatch – Lap Harp, Flute
Cameron Parkin – Synth Lead
Jimmy Bowman – Trombone
Alejandro ‘Silentjay’ Abapo – Soprano Saxophone
Horatio Luna – Bass Guitar

2. Dufresne – ‘Pick Up / Galaxy’
Jimmy Bowman – Keyboard, Vocals, Trombone, Trumpet
Samuel Kuzich – Drums, Vocals
Luis Poblete – Percussion
Matthew Lloyd – Bass
Ikey – Guitar, Vocals
Alien – Guitar, Synthesiser, Vocals
Alejandro “Silentjay” Abapo – Keyboard, Vocals
Chris Vizard – Trombone
Elle Shimada – Violin

3. Kuzich – ‘There Is No Time’
Samuel Kuzich – Drums, Flute, Vocals
Cam Parkin – Piano, Rhodes, Synthesiser
Alejandro “Silentjay” Abapo – Soprano Saxophone, Vocals
Jimmy Bowman – Trombone
Ikey – Guitar
Matthew Lloyd – Bass
Phil Stroud – Percussion
Lori – Vocals
Alien – Vocals

4. Audrey Powne – ‘Bleeding Hearts’
Audrey Powne – Trumpet, Vocals
Myka Wallace – Drums
James Bowers – Piano
Tim Curnick – Bass

5. Zeitgiest Freedom Energy Exchange – ‘Powers 2 (The People)’
Ziggy Zeitgeist – Drums
Matt Hayes – Bass
Lewis Moody – Keys
Erica Tucceri – Flutes

6. Laneous – ‘Nice To See You’
Laneous – Vocals, Bass, Guitar
Las Mar – Drums
Dön Võyágê – Trumpet, Trombone, Flugelhorn

7. Silentjay – ‘Eternal / Internal Peace’
Alejandro “Silentjay” Abapo – Saxophone
Jimmy Bowman – Trombone
Lori – Vocals
Simon Mavin – Keys, Synthesizers
Kumar Shome – Guitar
Paul Bender – Bass
Perrin Moss – Drums
Luis Poblete – Percussion
Perrin Moss, Alejandro “Silentjay” Abapo – Additional Percussion

8. Horatio Luna – ‘The Wake-Up’
Horatio Luna – Bass
Phil Stroud – Drums, Percussion
Jimmy Bowman – Synthesiser, Trumpet, Bass Trumpet
Ikey – Guitar
Alejandro “Silentjay” Abapo – Soprano Saxophone

9. Allysha Joy – ‘Orbit’
Allysha Joy – Vocals, Rhodes
Ziggy Zeitgeist – Drums
Horatio Luna – Bass
Josh Kelly – Saxophone
Elle Shimada – Violin
Rara Zulu, Abbey Howlett, Danika Smith, Hannah Macklin – Backing Vocals