Social media heavyweights are agitating against the “epidemic” of Australians in New York City. Their claims to a unique culture, we are told, are disingenuous and plain. And while I agree that Brooklyn probably doesn’t need another brunch place, I think we are being a little unfair to our antipodean friends.
If only we’d give the Ozzies a chance, we’d feel a little bit more like the Music Hall of Williamsburg did during Thursday’s Surprise Chef show: uplifted ad enlightened. These guys know how to write music for the soul.
The Melbourne five-piece are touring their new album Superb, released on Brooklyn’s Big Crown Records (see also Lady Wray, El Michels Affair, Lee Fields & the Expressions).
The audience could be forgiven for entering with some hesitancy; the music is very laid back (the drummer doesn’t even have a crash symbol). It wasn’t clear how this would translate into a live setting, and the band made no immediate effort to dispel this reticence, opening with one of the most laid back of all their tracks.
Surprise Chef’s music has a habit of making you wait (boring you even, if you want to be unkind about it). But then some luscious xylophone or flute pipes up – out of nowhere, the ingredient you didn’t know was missing: the lime on the taco, the flowers on the coffee table.
The band, arranged in a democratic semi-circle, are as chilled as their music. But don’t let this laid-back demeanor fool you: these Ozzies play as tight as anyone you’ll see at Mezrow, Smoke, or any of the other Blue Chip clubs across the East River.
Surprise Chef’s music is genuinely hard to place. It might be somewhere between jazz and funk. But it doesn’t take itself seriously enough to be the former, and it is simply too unflustered to be the latter. Big Crown describes them as “cinematic soul,” a stamp which works as well as any, and their performance comes with the pacing, wit and rapport you would expect from a good movie.
For once it feels right to let the mind drift, to be hypnotized into a different world. This is their goal: to trundle gently along, to let the beauty speak for itself, to let the narratives surprise you.
The band’s debut and second albums saw a generation of stoners through the pandemic, released when people had little else to do but stew in their living rooms and nestle in the solace of good music. Favorites from their debut All News is Good News – the title track, “Have You Fed Baby Huey Today,” and “Blythe Street Nocturne” (played as the energetic set closer) – were sprinkled throughout the set.
With no obvious frontman, crowd work duties fell to guitarist Lachlan Stuckey who, despite the language barrier, brought the crowd comfortably onside upfront when congratulating Knicks fans on their post-season run.
With relatively little soloing or improvisation in the performance, Surprise Chef used tight, mind-bending transitions to move between songs – all without a breath. The sensation this creates in the chest, the entrancing rhythms and basslines, are the closest thing jazz can feel to being in a club.
These guys are of the generation for whom irony provides the strongest – and perhaps only – bulwark against the chaos of the internet and contemporary politics: nothing can hurt you if you don’t care. Album track listings are littered with sardonic in-jokes: “Yung Boi Suite,” “New Ferrari,” and “All News Is Good News” practically beg you not to take them seriously.
But this sentiment was belied by Stuckey’s heartfelt sincerity. His parting words, said without a hint of irony, claimed that “this is way cooler than anything we could be doing at home.” Same.
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