Lanu

Lanu serves as the experimental outlet for Lance Ferguson, guitarist and driving force behind the Bamboos, who ranks among the most active and esteemed figures in Australia’s funk and soul circles. Ferguson entered the world in New Zealand and was raised amid music, his grandfather Bill Wolfgramm—an accomplished Hawaiian guitarist—having cut the nation’s inaugural LP back in 1956. He launched the Melbourne-based funk revival group the Bamboos in 2000; the outfit issued four albums across the decade—Step It Up, Rawville, Side-Stepper, and 4—plus the soundtrack for the Nintendo Wii title De Blob. During those same years Ferguson also handled production duties for Aloe Blacc and Ohmega Watts, oversaw bandmate Kylie Auldist’s pair of solo projects, helped establish the city’s groove-oriented club labels Local People and Equatorial, and contributed guitar to recording sessions with Joe Bataan, Eddie Floyd, and Alice Russell. In 2007 he unveiled his first solo album, This Is My Home, adopting the Lanu moniker—a childhood nickname drawn from the Tongan term for color—while exploring a palette that blended dream pop, folk, lounge, electro, and indie; four years afterward he issued the well-received follow-up Her 12 Faces.