Let Your Hair Down | "Waiting Room"

Over the last three years, those with their ear to the ground will have detected the emerging sound of cinematic instrumental soul music from Melbourne, Australia, from groups such as Surprise Chef and Karate Boogaloo. From this sound emerges a group that precedes the current wave of releases: the rag-tag group of gun session instrumentalists Let Your Hair Down.

Formed in 2014 as a side-project to iconic Melbourne soul band Saskwatch under the name ‘The Let Your Hair Down Girls’, the group served as a vehicle for the instrumental impulses of the band’s rhythm and horn sections. In the ensuing years, the group held down a reputation as Melbourne’s ‘pub soul’ staple, brazenly introducing psych funk, cinematic soul and boogaloo sounds to the beer-drenched haunts that prop up Melbourne’s rock ‘n’ roll scene. 

After a hiatus born from the touring commitments of  the increasingly in-demand players within the group, the project was was revived with the addition of fellow travellers Hudson Whitlock (Karate Boogaloo) and Lachlan Stuckey (Surprise Chef), and a full-length LP of the band’s percussive instrumental soul committed to tape over a weekend in Karate Boogaloo’s infamous attic studio. 

Produced by Henry Jenkins (Karate Boogaloo, Mo’Ju), the production mind behind all College Of Knowledge recordings, Waiting Room moves deftly through moments of fuzzed-out psychedelia, dusty deep soul backbeat and incendiary minor key funk.