Buzzin Electronic Music

Joey Negro & The Sunburst Band released their third album Moving With The Shakers this month on Z Records.

A ragbag delight of boogie, disco, funk and jazz, collaborators on ‘Moving With The Shakers’ include Harlem soul legend Leroy Burgess, Diane Charlemagne (who sang on Goldie’s ‘Inner City Life’) and Chaka Khan’s sister Taka Boom. Fulltime front man Pete Simpson is also known for lending his vocal talents to the Unabombers’ alias, The Elektrons.

‘Journey Intro’ opens with live strings and luscious vocals setting the scene for the 17 track opus. ‘Our Lives Are Shaped’ is a nod towards the East London 2 step soul, sound system days.

Founder memberDave Lee explains: “Lyrically it’s about how our lives are steered by the people we love and how they can alter our experiences and perception of the world.”

The album includes a slinky rework of David Bowie’s ‘Fashion’. The reworking takes the song away from its original pop rock sound and replaces it with a jazzy boogie vibe, then take it off into another direction instrumentally in the second half.

Forming in 1998, The Sunburst Band, Dave Lee explains, is a collective born out of passion. “It’s not like I’m the guy who harps on that it was so much better back in ’78,” says Dave with a smile, “but at the same time I’m a bit of a polar resistor who goes against the flow. When my mates were buying The Clash and Cocteau Twins, I was into D Train and Funkadelic. Similarly now as so many dance acts are making electro I’ve gone the other way with this project. I’ve missed the performance thing, the intensity of a band playing together.

Rock and indie have never moved away from the guitar and drums sound, whereas dance (be it R&B or house) tends to be mainly programmed. And it’s not that I have a problem with that, I just wanted to do something that I don’t hear too often nowadays. Some people might call it retro, but I’m just a guy writing songs and performing them with his band.”

Listen to Joey Negro & The Sunburst Band