After 16 years, Perth jazz-funk ensemble Junkadelic Brass Band have finally released their debut album.
To say it's been a long-time coming is an understatement considering the band was first established in 2002 simply as Junkadelic.
“The inception of it from 2002 was originally a percussion group and they got together as something of an environmental activist-style band where they would play James Brown rhythms on dustbins and buckets and cans,” Music Director and alto saxophonist, Marc Osborne explains.
Marc joined the group about six years ago and soon found himself ensconced in the fabric of the band as their Music Director.
“I spent a couple of years just playing alto [sax], but then I got more of a feel for the ensemble and started bringing in covers and arrangements of tunes I thought would work well with us, which then became writing as well and that's how I moved into the role of Music Director for the group,” he says.
Junkadelic Brass Band's debut album is called 'Travelling In The Footsteps' and will be launched with a live tour this September. It's the first lot of recorded material from the group outside of what Marc calls some “guerilla recordings of various EPs”.
He goes on to say that with the record he wanted to chronicle the evolution of the band over the past five years or so. “The current iteration of the band has been together for four or five years and the repertoire that's on the album is a collection of all our favourite tunes that we've accumulated over that period.
“What I wanted to do was to have a really high-quality documentation of where we're at creatively,” he says.
“With the junk element, [the band] can sometimes be perceived as hippies banging on buckets. So I wanted to record our music at a level I think it deserved given how rigorous the writing is and the synergy we've had as a group over those years.”
As a band that channels the energy of a New Orleans second line set-up, Junkadelic Brass Band also pay tribute to the storied musical legacy of that city, which they are so proudly a part.
“The second half of the album is a collection of tunes from a show that we did called 'Voodoo You Think You Are?', which is our tribute to traditional New Orleans voodoo spirits; the first part is more of a party set. That's just an example of how projects spur us on to new compositions.”
Though he calls them a “Freo band at heart”, Marc says he and the rest of Junkadelic Brass Band are excited about their upcoming album launch tour, which kicks of at Doo-Bop Jazz Bar in Brisbane. “We're really happy to be coming back to Brisbane,” he says.
“We were over there last for a couple of festivals on the Gold Coast and now we're lucky enough to get a spot at Doo-Bop, which everyone is very excited about. We're very happy to be in such a prestigious jazz club.”
Junkadelic Brass Band Tour Dates
Sat 1 Sep - Tamala Park Open Day (Perth)Fri 7 Sep - Doo-Bop Jazz Bar (Brisbane)
Sat 8 Sep - Redfest Strawberry Festival (Brisbane)
Sat 14 Sep - Mojos Bar (Fremantle)
Sat 29 Sep - Prince Of Wales (Bunbury)
Sun 30 - Clancy's Fish Pub (Dunsborough)
