Continuing the electric theme and also hailing from that South Pacific pocket of soul called Wellington City...Harbour City Electric
HCE are a 7 piece soul/funk/jazz outfit with a huge kinda futuristic Motown sound. The are one of those bands who have that ridiculously tightness that only comes from playing so many gigs together. They set themselves up playing a long running residency at the iconic Wellington venue Sandwiches and now have a solid line up of gigs up and down the country and I can't imagine it will be too long now till they start gracing the shores of Australia and abroad.
These guys are going to be huge. They dropped their EP (Buy it) earlier this year sending the singles to the top of local radio and also CD sales charts. For a very good reason. It's a monstrous 5 track EP and an amazing recording.
Guesting vox is the lovely Lisa Tomlins (Fat Freddys/Recloose). Engineering duties went to the legendary hands of Mike Gibson. Mixdown was done at Organik Muzik Workz by Benny Tones (see below) and the whole EP was mastered by none other than Dave Cooley (J Dilla, Madlib, D'Angelo) in LA.
With an all star line up like that behind the scenes it is no surprise that the EP sounds almost as good as seeing them play live.
Following up from the EP there is a remix CD in the pipelines and the full length album is coming in 2010. From the cheeky snippets I've heard it's going to be huge!
Being 7 a strong line up, I don't have enough blog juice in me to go through them all individually but I will quickly mention Ned Worboy's amazingly soulful vocals. He truly has 'one of those' voices. Ned also fronts The Aviators and is turning up on some very interesting stuff here and there. Simon Koziarski on gat has got some mad chops and juggles the bands management and then there is Ed Zuccollo.
Ed is a machine! He's been playing since he was knee high to a piano stool and hasn't stopped since. He also has an unhealthy obsession with tone, vintage keyboards and analog synths. His side projects (Shed, Ed Zuccollo Trio) are some of the most inspiring I have come across this year.HCE have an amazing EP out now and stay tuned for a killer remix CD and full length album in '10.
Catch them playing all over NZ this summer.
