Surprise Chef are Coburg’s cinematic soul journeymen, pushing moody shades of instrumental jazz-funk with a DIY mentality. Instrumental quartet from Coburg (Melbourne Australia). Core artist on College Of Knowledge Records. The centrepiece of the College Of Knowledge Records roster, Surprise Chef’s output reflects a meticulous education of 1970’s soul, touching on the legacies of composer/producers David Axelrod & Isaac Hayes, with cues also taken from the catalogues of Daptone and Truth & Soul From little things, instrumental juggernauts grow. The members of Surprise Chef first gathered in 2017 with the modest aim of recording to tape a couple of spontaneous funk jams. As planned, those analogue sessions gave rise to a series of collectable 45s but the unexpected gold they uncovered was a chemistry and camaraderie that has come to define the lives of the band-members ever since. Three LPs and countless international tours later, Surprise Chef is globally recognized and respected with their emotive brand of cinematic soul, a sound that has been informed equally by their isolation in Australia and their deep love for soul, funk and classic film-scores. Their first album, All News Is Good News, established the foundation for their distinctive sound, and each subsequent release has pushed their creative boundaries. Along the journey they’ve garnered praise from the likes of Questlove and Jurassic 5’s DJ Nu-Mark and were sampled for a collaboration between 88 Rising’s Rich Brian and Wu Tang’s legendary Ghostface Killah. They also provided the soundtrack to a Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime advertisement. After spending the first half of 2024 immersed in their critically acclaimed re-score of the 1970s Australian cult classic Wake in Fright – performed live alongside a never-before-seen 4K screening of the movie – the band found themselves in an entirely new creative space. Fresh from the intensity of that project, the recording sessions for Superb were intended to be the opposite process-wise; lighter, less intense,