Surprise Chef
All News Is Good News
There is something simultaneously both brand-new and retro about 'All News Is Good News', the debut album from Melbourne's instrumental soul group Surprise Chef. It sounds like something dreamt up by lo-fi cousins of David Axelrod and Janko Nilovic, with dramatic library-music-eqsue cinematic arrangements echoing both light and dark, delving into moments of dissonance and positivity. There is a meticulous education of 1970s soul on display that touches on the legacies of the great composer/producers, yet at the same time this is a truly contemporary record that could have only been made now. The first limited pressing of 'All News Is Good News' was released on the band's own College Of Knowledge imprint in November 2019. It slipped rapidly into the collective consciousness of underground music lovers around the world, with all copies selling out within a week.