Surprise Chef - All News Is Good News Vinyl LP

There’s something both timeless and refreshingly modern about All News Is Good News, the debut album from Melbourne’s instrumental soul ensemble Surprise Chef. Evoking the lo-fi imaginings of David Axelrod and Janko Nilovic, the record layers dramatic, Library-music-style cinematic arrangements that move seamlessly between light and shadow, dissonance and optimism. Rooted in a meticulous education of 1970s soul and its legendary composers and producers, the album remains unmistakably contemporary, a product that could exist only today. Originally released in a limited pressing on the band’s College of Knowledge imprint in 2019, it sold out within a week, quickly winning the hearts of underground music lovers worldwide. Formed in 2017, the four-piece band enlisted friends and family on flute, saxophone, vibraphone, congas, and percussion, all captured live to tape in Melbourne engineer Henry Jenkins’s studio, giving the album its warm, raw authenticity. As Lachlan Stuckey explains, “All of the music we record is tracked live to tape, simply because so many of the records we love most were made that way.” The result is a cinematic journey of instrumental soul poised to resonate with fans of Axelrod, Truth & Soul, El Michels Affair, and Daptone alike, as well as newcomers ready to discover Surprise Chef’s singular world.