Light percussion opens “Down Home”, the new single from Melbourne instrumental funk quartet Karate Boogaloo, before a bass line takes the lead at an easy mid-tempo. The drums lock into a hard, tight pocket on a kit that sounds close to falling apart, while organ and choppy guitar come in over the top. That rattling kit gives the rough edge to a tune named after anything simple and worn in. The main theme leans openly on nostalgia, and the band reckon anyone who has declared the riff dead should “check their specs“.
Drummer Hudson Whitlock plays alongside Henry Jenkins on bass, Callum Riley on organ and Darvid Thor on guitar. The four met as classmates at a Melbourne high school and have played together for almost two decades. In our July interview with the band, Jenkins explained that Karate Boogaloo began strictly as a covers act devoted to The Meters and Booker T. & The MG’s. The change came with an original called “Stay Healthy”, which he described as the moment the band “crossed the River Rubicon“.
“Down Home” precedes Access All Areas, due on 9 October through Colemine Records and College of Knowledge Records. In February 2027 Karate Boogaloo tour the UK, France and the Netherlands. The run opens on 3 February aboard V11, a 1951 British lightship docked in Rotterdam, and closes upstairs at Paradiso in Amsterdam on the 13th. The London date is at the Jazz Cafe on 5 February. Further nights follow at Hyde Park Book Club in Leeds, The Abbey in Manchester, The Jam Jar in Bristol, Le Tetris in Le Havre and POPUP! in Paris.