STACK #242 December 2024

MUSIC FEATURE

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PROCESS DRIVEN We sat down with Aussie music royaltyTim Rogers to discuss his new collaboration with Lance Ferguson of The Bamboos,The Ferguson Rogers Process.

Style and or Substance by The Ferguson Rogers Process is out Nov 29 via Impressed.

Before we get deeper into the music, how did you and Lance find each other? I had been a fan of The Bamboos since the beginning, and then met Lance when he was playing guitar with Meg Washington 14 years ago. It was a year or two later I got a call out of the blue from Lance asking if I wanted to sing on their album. And that’s when the friendship began. His music knowledge is so vast, I’m really interested in the music he listens to. We can go months without speaking to each other, just sending the odd message of what we’re listening to or should be listening to. But when Lance calls, I pick up. Because when Lance calls, it’s joy. He’s always surrounded by tremendous bands, which is just a testament to what a brilliant songwriter and human he is. He’s the leader of anything he and I do together. He’s the boss.

unique album, by the way… Style over substance has been a constant critique of mine, to me, and about me. And there’s validity in that for sure… But I thought hey, with this record, let’s throw in a mix of both. We love dressing up, and putting on a good show, but we also want to have something in there that’s not just flashy glitter. You’ve explored so many musical styles over the years, clearly not someone who can be boxed into a single genre. After listening to Style and or Substance on repeat, we tried to categorise the sound, but the best we could come up with was ‘grubby disco’.Would you say that fits, or do you have a different description for it? ‘Dirty disco’ was one of the self-described sounds we used. So yes. I guess the initial thing Lance I talked about years ago was making a purely dance record. And we referenced bands we knew who’d done disco but were a bit clumsy at it. And we wanted to avoid falling into that trap.

Lance Ferguson andTim Rogers

So, there’s a tiny bit of Talking Heads, and strangely enough I lyrically took a lot from listening to Mark E. Smith of The Fall, and the tumble of conscious lyrics that he uses. Because the songs are dance songs, we wanted to avoid falling into the lexicon of the way traditional disco song lyrics fall into. And, with the limitations of my voice, I get a real thrill of getting out of that lexicon and I add a little fruity to it, and it’s gets misunderstood as character. Are we going to be lucky enough to get a tour next year? Yeah – there will be a tour early next year. Trista McConville

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How did you come up with the album title Style and or Substance ? It’s a great and

DINNER PARTY MUSIC

CHART FACT Prelude to Ecstasy entered the UK charts at number one in February, with the biggest

C all it a postlude or an epilogue. The Last Dinner’s Party debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy , just got bigger. The deluxe edition – Prelude to Ecstasy: Acoustics and Covers – features nine bonus tracks. It caps a remarkable year for the band, which saw them top the UK charts, play at Coachella, and do a sell-out Australian tour. Asked to describe their year, the band replied: “Unbelievable. Surprising. Surreal.” The UK’s hottest new band of 2024 ends the year with a bang. The new edition of Prelude to Ecstasy features four covers. All of them were originally released before the members ofThe Last Dinner Party were born. Wicked Game – Chris Isaak, 1989 This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us – Sparks, 1974 THE COVERS

Prelude to Ecstasy: Acoustics and Covers by Dinner Party Music is out now via Island/Universal

first-week sales for a

debut album in nine years.

Georgia Davies, Aurora Nishevci, Abigail Morris, Emily Roberts and Lizzie Mayland

THE NAME GAME

AUSSIE ALERT The Last Dinner Party’s bass player Georgia Davies is an Aussie. She grew up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, listening to Triple J and loving bands such as The Jungle Giants and Ball Park Music. Georgia moved to the UK to study literature.

The band formed when they met at university. They initially called themselves The Dinner Party but changed their name to The Last Dinner Party to avoid confusion with the American jazz supergroup Dinner Party .

Up North – Catherine Howe, 1971 Army Dreamers – Kate Bush, 1980

34 DECEMBER 2024

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