Biography
Formed in Australia as an instrumental quintet, Surprise Chef centers its approach entirely on generating and summoning particular moods. Their method fuses elements drawn from jazz-funk, exploitation and police soundtracks, sound-library pressings, classic soul, and hip-hop to lock into unadorned groove. College of Knowledge Records issued their opening pair of albums, All News Is Good News and Daylight Savings, through Mr. Bongo in 2020, earning attention worldwide. The 2021 remix collection Masters at Work & Harvey Sutherland: Remixes drew strong approval from both reviewers and selectors. Festival dates across North America and Europe in 2022 rapidly broadened their audience, after which the group moved to Big Crown Records for the October release of their third album, Education & Recreation.
The musicians operate from Coburg on the edge of Melbourne in Victoria. The lineup comprises guitarist Lachlan Stuckey, keyboardist Jethro Curtin, bassist Carl Lindeberg, drummer Andrew Congues, and producer, composer, percussionist, and multi-instrumentalist Hudson Whitlock. They assembled in 2017 and began writing, arranging, and tracking demos inside College of Knowledge, the shared Coburg art space whose name Stuckey and Curtin later adopted for their label. As committed crate diggers they quickly recognized overlapping reference points and refined their style away from the local scene, since no one else was pursuing a comparable direction. Their process favors organic texture and open space, with every take captured live to tape.
Once they had learned to write, record, and play as a unit, Surprise Chef issued the debut single “Stuart Little’s Car” b/w “D.A. Stab Wound” on College of Knowledge. The A-side blended tight funk breaks, forward-looking tenor saxophone from guest Max Dowling, atmospheric keyboards, and soul-inflected guitar and bass figures. Later in 2019 the follow-up “Where’s the Cream” b/w “Do You Even Know What a Passport Is?” folded psychedelic soul into wide-open rhythms. All News Is Good News was tracked in a few days during 2019 at their Coburg facility; its nine originals drew from Curtis Mayfield, Richard Evans, Janko Nilovic, Isaac Hayes, and Neil Ardley, with additional reeds and winds supplied by friends. Karate Boogaloo’s Henry Jenkins handled recording and production while Stuckey supplied the artwork. Five hundred copies were pressed locally and sold out within two weeks. Copies mailed to Mr. Bongo in London were played daily in the store and elicited an immediate response; when the label attempted a reorder the pressing had already vanished. Mr. Bongo therefore licensed the album, repressed it, and reissued it in July 2020 amid the pandemic. By then the band had finished Daylight Savings.
Mr. Bongo’s international reach placed All News Is Good News in shops and attracted coverage from multiple territories, while European broadcasters and club DJs such as Gilles Peterson championed the record. Although a new album had just appeared, the label argued that momentum should be seized, given the constant appetite for fresh material created by the pandemic, and released the Jenkins-produced Daylight Savings in November.
The strategy succeeded. Coverage across print, online outlets, and podcasts praised the group’s summery soul-jazz-funk explorations and breakbeat constructions. Pieces such as the urgent “Deadlines,” the espionage-flavored “New Ferrari,” the hallucinatory title track, and the expansive, percussion-heavy fusion of “Leave It Don’t Take It” prompted writers to cite early George Duke, Lalo Schifrin, Weather Report, and David Axelrod. Australian dates and a handful of European club shows followed throughout 2021. In October Mr. Bongo answered the band’s growing club presence with Masters at Work & Harvey Sutherland: Remixes, featuring three versions of “Crayfish Caper” and three of “New Ferrari” by Sutherland. The EP gained rapid traction in clubs and on late-night European radio mixes.
International touring in 2022 took Surprise Chef to festivals in England, the United States, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and additional territories. Sets mixed newly written material with extended spontaneous jams that encouraged dancing. Mr. Bongo issued the third album, Education & Recreation, that October. In the intervening period the group’s compositional scope had widened considerably; the opening “A1 Bakery Pledge of Allegiance” merged the Meters with Monk Higgins, “Velodrome” interwove guitars, synths, and breaks into a relaxed, humid summer groove, and “Suburban Breeze” joined jazz flute to dubwise bass, reverb, cumbia, and soul. The collection was deliberately shaped to supply additional sonic detail, breathing room, and rich textures within laid-back grooves and received the strongest and most plentiful praise to date.
Further shows closed the year, and new music resumed in early 2023 with the psych-inflected “Pash Rash” in January, the trippy soul of “Rosemary Hemphill” in February, and the funky fusion of “Friendship Theme” in March.
The musicians operate from Coburg on the edge of Melbourne in Victoria. The lineup comprises guitarist Lachlan Stuckey, keyboardist Jethro Curtin, bassist Carl Lindeberg, drummer Andrew Congues, and producer, composer, percussionist, and multi-instrumentalist Hudson Whitlock. They assembled in 2017 and began writing, arranging, and tracking demos inside College of Knowledge, the shared Coburg art space whose name Stuckey and Curtin later adopted for their label. As committed crate diggers they quickly recognized overlapping reference points and refined their style away from the local scene, since no one else was pursuing a comparable direction. Their process favors organic texture and open space, with every take captured live to tape.
Once they had learned to write, record, and play as a unit, Surprise Chef issued the debut single “Stuart Little’s Car” b/w “D.A. Stab Wound” on College of Knowledge. The A-side blended tight funk breaks, forward-looking tenor saxophone from guest Max Dowling, atmospheric keyboards, and soul-inflected guitar and bass figures. Later in 2019 the follow-up “Where’s the Cream” b/w “Do You Even Know What a Passport Is?” folded psychedelic soul into wide-open rhythms. All News Is Good News was tracked in a few days during 2019 at their Coburg facility; its nine originals drew from Curtis Mayfield, Richard Evans, Janko Nilovic, Isaac Hayes, and Neil Ardley, with additional reeds and winds supplied by friends. Karate Boogaloo’s Henry Jenkins handled recording and production while Stuckey supplied the artwork. Five hundred copies were pressed locally and sold out within two weeks. Copies mailed to Mr. Bongo in London were played daily in the store and elicited an immediate response; when the label attempted a reorder the pressing had already vanished. Mr. Bongo therefore licensed the album, repressed it, and reissued it in July 2020 amid the pandemic. By then the band had finished Daylight Savings.
Mr. Bongo’s international reach placed All News Is Good News in shops and attracted coverage from multiple territories, while European broadcasters and club DJs such as Gilles Peterson championed the record. Although a new album had just appeared, the label argued that momentum should be seized, given the constant appetite for fresh material created by the pandemic, and released the Jenkins-produced Daylight Savings in November.
The strategy succeeded. Coverage across print, online outlets, and podcasts praised the group’s summery soul-jazz-funk explorations and breakbeat constructions. Pieces such as the urgent “Deadlines,” the espionage-flavored “New Ferrari,” the hallucinatory title track, and the expansive, percussion-heavy fusion of “Leave It Don’t Take It” prompted writers to cite early George Duke, Lalo Schifrin, Weather Report, and David Axelrod. Australian dates and a handful of European club shows followed throughout 2021. In October Mr. Bongo answered the band’s growing club presence with Masters at Work & Harvey Sutherland: Remixes, featuring three versions of “Crayfish Caper” and three of “New Ferrari” by Sutherland. The EP gained rapid traction in clubs and on late-night European radio mixes.
International touring in 2022 took Surprise Chef to festivals in England, the United States, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and additional territories. Sets mixed newly written material with extended spontaneous jams that encouraged dancing. Mr. Bongo issued the third album, Education & Recreation, that October. In the intervening period the group’s compositional scope had widened considerably; the opening “A1 Bakery Pledge of Allegiance” merged the Meters with Monk Higgins, “Velodrome” interwove guitars, synths, and breaks into a relaxed, humid summer groove, and “Suburban Breeze” joined jazz flute to dubwise bass, reverb, cumbia, and soul. The collection was deliberately shaped to supply additional sonic detail, breathing room, and rich textures within laid-back grooves and received the strongest and most plentiful praise to date.
Further shows closed the year, and new music resumed in early 2023 with the psych-inflected “Pash Rash” in January, the trippy soul of “Rosemary Hemphill” in February, and the funky fusion of “Friendship Theme” in March.
Albums
