Lance Ferguson - Raw Material: The Originals

Raw Material: The Originals is the debut solo album by Australian soul musician Lance Ferguson, released in August 2017 via Warner Music Australia.

Lance Ferguson is best known as a guitarist and founding member of Melbourne funk and soul band The Bamboos, who have released seven studio albums since their formation in 2000, the most recent being The Rules Of Attraction (with Tim Rogers) in 2015.

Raw Material is the first solo studio album to be released under his own name. Raw Material is a total re-think of the remix album concept, and is driven by a deep dedication to sampling, vinyl culture and collaboration. The lead single was  “Back To You”, featuring One Above, vocalist EMRSN and Melbourne MC Mosé.

Ferguson wrote and recorded twelve new funk, jazz and disco tracks using some of the best players in the country (drawn from members of Hiatus Kaiyote, The Putbacks and The Bamboos). These tracks were then pressed onto individual vinyl singles – but only two copies of each. One copy he kept, the other was sent to producers that he admired, with the idea that they would sample from it to create a new track. Proving his own wide ranging musical versatility, Ferguson himself contributed six of the reworks with some esteemed guest vocalists and MCs.

“I basically said to everyone: I am making a solo album, I really want you to guest-produce on it but you have to use this one song (or elements from it) as the basis”, Ferguson said. ”It is free to sample. Make a new piece of music from what you have here, but add as many other elements on top as you want.”

In the end more than 30 musicians, DJs, producers and vocalists took part in this project.

Check out the tracks:  “Make Up Your Mind”; “Voyage To The Future”; and “Love Disguise”.

This LP record is on black vinyl with a digital download code for full double album, pressed in Australia.