Karate Boogaloo // The Eisenberg Review Interview
Photo by Carl Os
Karate Boogaloo have been building their own corner of instrumental funk and soul for nearly twenty years.
Formed in Melbourne/Naarm as school friends, the quartet began by digging into the music of The Meters, Booker T. & the MG’s, The J.B.’s and other foundational sounds before developing a language distinctly their own. Along the way came a run of early mixtapes, an increasingly interconnected musical world around College of Knowledge, and a recording philosophy built around groove, restraint and getting things right in the room.
Their new album, Access All Areas, arrives October 9 on Colemine Records and College of Knowledge, with a simple rule at its center: keep it accessible, keep it memorable, and if an idea gets too complicated, throw it out.
I caught up with drummer Hudson Whitlock and bassist, producer, and engineer Henry Jenkins to talk about the band’s beginnings, those early mixtapes, where the Karate Boogaloo name came from, the rules that shape the project, Access All Areas, and plenty more.
