Mutha Funkin Earth

House of Downtown like to share the love. The love of the music, the love the party and the love of the people.

Since their debut album 'Release' Christiaan Ercolano and Emerson Todd have been busy boys. With remix and production work for the likes of Stella and Nesian Mystik, their essential, new talent busting 4-deck nights at Real Time, their ever popular live House of Downtown performances and individual DJ sets, they could be forgiven for taking a breather. Instead they've locked themselves away in the studio and crafted an extremely fine new album -Mutha Funkin Earth.

'Release' spawned the hits 'Whatever Comes' - a bounding piece of happiness that reached well out of it's intended range and led to the composition of the feature film soundtrack 'Stickmen' with the throbbing 'Downtown Groove' becoming the unofficial theme. While the album was picked up by Universal Music NZ, 4 other tracks were subsequently licensed to compilation and 12inch.

The new album Mutha Funkin Earth takes the H.O.D sound of skewed beats and people friendly hooks out of the nightclub and into the neighbourhood. Featuring a large cast of contributors, collaborators and co-conspirators, H.O.D's love of pre-Mac electro-technology shines through on an album that comes across with the grit and soul of a lost Motown recording circa '79.

Christiaan explains: "Emerson and I were really excited about the level of talent we were able to get on the album, having Bella (Kalolo) onboard has been a blessing, the duo with Tulele (Release's 'Feel it', 'Deeper Love') is an example of the FINEST TALENT in Australasia. These guys are the future!

"Real musicians have been the real change for Mutha Funkin Earth; Ned Star returns on guitar, Levani on percussion, Godfrey De Grut on his funky wah clav and a lot of the keyboard parts are played live. We started with pen and paper and tooled up to 24-bit Digital."

When the strongest tunes started to appear, H.O.D tracked them with Andy Morton (Submariner, King Kapisi) before engineering the finals in Australia with Jeremy Allom, (Massive Attack, Bjork) on a vintage console responsible for albums like 'Dark side of the Moon' and Marvin Gaye's seminal 'What's goin on'.

The resulting tunes and sonic weight create a new level in New Zealand's electronic music scene. Huge grooving basslines dominate, with only the strongest voices and hooks able to survive. All forms of music from all eras can be found in this catchy, complex, mutha of a funky electronic soul album.

The first release from the album, 'Friday Drive' bubbles along on a getting-in-the-mood vibe with a massively infectious vocal hook and subtlety addictive melody pre-wrapped and ready for summer. Tunes like 'Bloodshot' with rap courtesy of Feelstyle is push-you- over punk while '1st Second' is a pure slow jam as only H.O.D can.

Mutha Funkin Earth is a NZ album for the world. Killer grooves, real songs, real talent combined with passion and fun make this an intrinsically Pacific slice of NewCountryFunk!