Cookin' On 3 BurnersLab Experiments Vol 1: Mixin'
Soul Messin'

- Melbourne funksters of mixing and matching, Jake Mason, Dan West and Ivan Khatchoyan, aka Cookin' On 3 Burners have followed their foray into letting other people mix their music earlier this year (on Vs.) with some of their own original material as well as a very surprising cover on this longer-than-an-EP-but-shorter-than-a-full-blown-album.

Given the title of the release, we aren’t really in Breaking Bad territory here, even if the funk lines and grooves do suggest an ill-spent afternoon cutting class. There is some juicy funk, jazz and soul here. Drums, bass and Jake Mason’s vibrant Hammond organ playing make for a heady mixture. It’s a pleasure to listen to three musicians who are fine at their craft put it all on display to real advantage.

As with previous COB3 releases, they bring in some vocal sultriness with regular collaborator Kylie Auldist on More Than A Mouthful, a great late night cocktail bar tune with a cooing chorus right out of a bender on the down low in Harlem. Stella Angelico (Sweet Talker) is pure 1960's joyousness – floral print, a Mary Quant hairstyle and Jean Shrimpton in a sleeveless frock without gloves at the Melbourne Cup. The whole experimental enterprise opens with Emmi going to town on Real Life Baby which has nothing but pure class oozing out of every bar, with clear overtones of Amy Winehouse in the vocal mix.

The lads pull together a series of “experiments” in the instrumentals, which is what the heart of the recording is all about – traversing a musical history from the late '50s to the mid-'70s. Heavy Lenny pulls you toward a Blaxploitation film set, Lone Wolf and Wind Up traverse a terrain that could score the next Tarantino epic, if he chooses to head back to the urban wastelands of the USA.

CO3B have called this release something that, “joins the dots between Deep Funk, Raw Soul, Organ Jazz & Boogaloo” and yes, that’s all there; but there is something else – nostalgia, and it is nostalgia done damn right. This is good experimentation and seeing as it’s called “Volume 1” it will be a pleasure to see what they offer with a Volume 2.

PS That “very surprising cover”? Enter Sandman – yep, it’s Metallica – with a very different drum & bass line to the one you’re probably much more familiar. Not to mention that Hammond organ sound.

- Blair Martin.

Cookin' On 3 BurnersLab Experiments Vol 1: Mixin'

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