Lance Ferguson – ‘Still Life’ 10th Anniversary
Lance Ferguson is the guitarist and founding member of Australian soul group The Bamboos. Lance also releases electronic side projects under his DJ name Lanu. On their early singles and 2006 debut album ‘Step It Up‘ on Tru Thoughts, The Bamboos played old-fashioned, primarily instrumental funk with a strong emphasis on repeated grooves, simplicity, and low-tech recording techniques. They gradually began working with more vocalists, particularly Kylie Auldist, who has sung on all of their subsequent albums.
Releases such as 2010’s ‘4‘ incorporated hip-hop, psychedelic pop and cinematic music into the group’s sound, with rapper Lyrics Born guesting on one song. This was followed by ‘Rawville‘ in 2007, a much more vocal-heavy effort, featuring rapper Ohmega Watts and singers Tyra Hammond, Fallon Williams, and Kylie Auldist. The group brought Auldist on tour with them and Tru Thoughts was so impressed that they signed her as a solo artist. The group backed her up on 2008’s ‘Just Say (The Bamboos Present)’ and she also appeared on their live album, Listen! Hear! Live!!! and the Northern soul-influenced studio offering ‘Side-Stepper‘, which also featured Melbourne singer Megan Washington and British rapper Ty. 2012’s ‘Medicine Man‘ featured a greater range of vocalists, with Aloe Blacc, Tim Rogers and Megan Washington joining, in addition to regulars Auldist and Ella Thompson.
In celebration of the ten-year anniversary of ‘Still Life’, a retro-soul classic on Tru Thoughts, we asked Lance to choose his favourite songs from Kylie’s back catalogue, both from her solo releases and her longtime collaboration with The Bamboos. Listen to the full selection over on this Spotify playlist.
1. Kylie Auldist – Letterhead Life
The original musical DNA for this song was a groove we used to use as a “walk-on”/interlude section of The Bamboos live set. I always thought it had legs as a full-blown song, so I played a demo version for Kylie and we extended it out into what eventually became “Letterhead Life”. Writing music with Kylie just kind of seems to “work”. I have learned over the decades that having that kind of rapport with another musician is very rare, and I feel lucky to have found that with someone who is not only a truly formidable musical talent, but also a truly wonderful person.
I came up with a lot of the instrumentals/grooves and basic ideas for the ’Still Life’ album when I was between studios. I had set up a make-shift writing set-up at my sister’s house and got just down to business. Kylie and I had talked about breaking away from the classic ‘60s Soul/Funk sound and bringing some Disco and Boogie flavours into the mix for the album. “Changes” was one of the first things that happened.
When I think of this song, I remember a live version we played on Brighton Beach UK, on a beautiful Summer’s day – recorded/filmed by the wonderful Tru Thoughts crew back in 2010. It was Kylie, myself on acoustic guitar, Danny on shaker and our three-piece horn section. This is a song we definitely need to dust off and play live more!
Back around the mid-2000’s I had been trying to pull The Bamboos out of strictly playing Deep Funk. The ‘60s raw Soul sound was really coming back and I felt like it was a good way to get into writing “Song” songs (rather than staying on one chord for ten minutes…which is still always gonna be fun too!). When Kylie signed to Tru Thoughts the first album was billed as “The Bamboos Present: Kylie Auldist”, but we tried to broaden the palette and have a mix of hard Funk along with straight-up, sweet and Northern-influenced Soul. Kylie sounds gorgeous on this one and there is a really uplifting vibe to it all.
5. Kylie Auldist – Everybody Here Wants You
We had recorded a version of Jeff Buckley’s classic tune for Triple J’ Radio’s popular segment “Like A Version” down here in Australia, and it made sense to include it on Kylie’s debut album for Tru Thoughts, as the arrangement really worked well. There is a beautiful, raw emotion to Kylie’s vocal take on this that still floors me.
King’s Cross is a district of Sydney that has a colourful history stretching back almost a century – as an epicentre of hedonism, counter-culture, art, live music and all the madness of the nightlife. Now, sadly it has become cleaned up by councils and property developers, but we tried to capture some of the feel of the place in this song. Kylie is channelling some ‘60’s Shirley Bassey-esque, noir Psych-Soul on this one.
7. The Bamboos – Keep Me In Mind
This is still the song we end our Bamboos live sets with 99% of the time. There’s something that seems to peak on an emotional level when we get to that point in the show, that makes this song really explode on stage. In terms of the original song, I still regard this as one of Kylie’s finest recorded performances. So much energy and soulful power – the stuff she does in the end section is simply unbelievable.
8. The Bamboos – Window feat. Kylie Auldist
I wrote this song after the death of Amy Winehouse – it’s really a tribute song to her. I found her death to be shocking and tragic at the time – it seems those truly iconic artists just don’t come along everyday, and sometimes you don’t realise just how influential someone is until they’re gone. Kylie was able to take what I had written and bring it to life in a totally heart-wrenching way, she really paints the picture here in an outstanding recorded performance.
This is one of The Bamboos most well-played songs – and I think a Tru Thoughts favourite! We have played it on almost every show we’ve done over the last 13 years. If you want to see some really cringe-worthy “Musician Acting” (I speak of my own efforts only of course) – I refer you to the official video clip, with it’s audacious heist plot and twist ending – which will forever elicit endless laughter from all involved.
10. The Bamboos – I Don’t Wanna Stop (Marc Mac’s Grown Soul Mix)
It was a thrill and an honour to have UK legend Marc Mac remix one of our songs, and he really smashed it out of the park with this re-interpretation. This song was the very first appearance of Kylie Auldist on any Bamboos record, and she would soon make her presence felt as our full-time lead singer – in turn propelling the band to new musical heights and crazy adventures from Glenroy to Granada. What a wild ride it has been!
