The Bamboos: Hard Up | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- Twenty years, ten albums, hours and hours of gigging, rehearsing, writing and recording, The Bamboos are not just polished and professional, they gleam like a high-end sports car on slick car dealer’s showroom floor. The analogy of one sort of showroom with another type is perfectly apt. They literally make any space a showroom for their collective talents -even during 2020’s lockdown- by offering the album’s title track and first single as a nine-screen, Brady Bunch-esque performance.

Tracking through Hard Up there’s not a moment that seems misplaced, even if the band haven’t had many opportunities in the last year to rehearse together let alone perform to an audience. That first track is a cracker of a way to start, a smoky groove and whistle that lays the ground for Kylie Auldist to bang in a heavy soulful cry of just how feckin’ tough life is for those who aren’t gifted with the greased palms of the wealthy and corrupt. Speaking of the power/greed intersection, a very James Brown / Nile Rodgers brass line and the guitar riff underpin Power Without Greed which brings back that unfairly overlooked component of music making – the funky flute solo, very '70s!

One half of Sydney’s Jones Jnr., Ev Jones, brings their rich and tender vocal style to guest on the second single release that preceded this album, While You Sleep, a slice of '60's soul sweetness. Another of the guest vocalists to work with The Bamboos is LA singer/muso Joey Dosik who lends a very Smokey Robinson & The Miracles vibe to the sunny, mid-tempo groove It’s All Gonna Be O.K. – not a bad line to keep repeating in these cray cray days “like a little prayer”, as the lyrics say.

Also showing up for a turn on the mic is another State-sider Durand Jones who brings some soaring white-soul vocals on If Not Now (Then When), displaying some impressive breath and quality control holding the long notes while pushing them right up to and through the ceiling. In the background, The Bamboos purr along swaying to a seductive drum beat laid down by Graeme Pogson. Rounding out the album, bar one classic cover, is the heartfelt I Just Heard You’re Leaving where Auldist channels another great Australian all-rounder of a vocalist, Renee Geyer, this time in the best blues ballad tradition.

That one classic cover is a little unexpected – Black Box’s 1989 Italo-disco smash Ride On Time. Depending on which version you’ve heard it’s either the late Loleatta Holloway or M People’s Heather Small vocals that make the track what it is, and no-one should be comparing Auldist to either of those great singers or asking her to do an impersonation of them either. The band take the song and play it in the style of '70's funk-meets-emerging-disco and Auldist moves through the registers to put another spin on a classic. It’s a stylish move that underlines just how tight this band really is.

Bamboos founder, Lance Ferguson, got the band to record Hard Up away from their usual Melbourne city studios and rehearsal rooms at the end of 2019 in a house upcountry Victoria, showing a more relaxed and creative tone in the final release. Even with the collaborations of Durand Jones and Joey Dosik coming in a second round of recording after the worst of the lockdown was over, the whole album hangs together well and is crying out for a packed showroom grooving hard and showing their appreciation for what might be The Bamboos best album of all ten. Hopefully that isn’t too far away from happening.

- Blair Martin.
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