The University of West London

Sound Engineering lecturer brings the funk to the UK and Japan

Thursday 15 March 2012

A lecturer at the University's London College of Music and its School of Computing and Technology is celebrating the sounds of funk with the release of his latest album.

Nino Auricchio is the keyboard player, co-writer and producer of the UK funk and soul band, Funkshone.

The album simply titled '2', was released on Skyline Recordings in the UK and across Europe and in Japan on the P-Vine label on 12 March 2012.

Almost three years since the band's debut album, 'Shining', '2' is far more broad musically and stylistically, exploring various corners of the funk genre.  The influence of early 1970s cop show and spy thriller themes is apparent, along with dub influences, mid-tempo soulful hip-hop and up-tempo drum break filled tracks harking back to James Brown and the JBs. 

Guests on the album include Kaidi Tatham (4Hero, Bugz in the Attic) on flute and Echo Strings (Soul II Soul, Duran Duran, Courtney Pine).

Describing the approach to the album, Nino said: 

‘We wanted to move on from the heavy late 60s influenced garage funk of first album and move towards more intricate and involved styles that came about in the early 70s.  The album has taken about two and a half years to record and we have gone through a number of line-up changes, including an amazing new singer Jaelee Small, new trumpet player Alez Bezzina and new trombone player Patrick Kenny.  We had some real fun making the album, bringing in lots of musicians with weird and wonderful instruments such as theremin, mellotron and hammered dulcimer.  We were really proud of the fact that all the sounds on the album are authentic, with no samples or loops and only using vintage guitars, amps, Hammond organ, analogue synthesizers, Clavinet, Rhodes piano, etc."

The album is currently riding high in the funk bestseller lists on numerous online retailers and is receiving airplay on BBC 6 Music every week on the Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show.  The band has a number of gigs lined up in London, Leeds and Manchester over the coming months.’

Funkshone '2' is available now on CD, vinyl LP and download through Amazon, iTunes, HMV, Juno and all good music retailers.