Lanu

While the origins of the broken beat sound are generally traced to West London, it’s a sound that has obviously transcended those borders, a fact that Lanu’s This Is My Home clearly underlines. Lanu (aka Lance Ferguson) is actually a guitarist in Australian deep funk band the Bamboos. While This Is My Home obviously draws on jazz-fusion, among other things from the past, given its broken beat influences, it looks forward rather than backwards for inspiration. This progressive approach is not limited to the music either. This Is My Home pointedly addresses world issues and collective aspirations. "Mother Earth” is a self-explanatory, Afrobeat-tinged workout featuring Aloe Blacc and Quantic, while "Dis-Information” tackles organisational propaganda and personal agency over an infectious bed of squelch-y funk. Like fellow Antipodean Mark de Clive-Lowe, Lanu employs a number of collaborators for his broken beat sound and his versatility helps him to get his message across without veering into didacticism. Maintaining this balance, This Is My Home is a shrewdly conceived and executed record that will get your body moving and your mind thinking.