DOUBLE LP - Bluey’s fourth Citrus Sun album for Dome, Anaconga is an homage to jazz and soul greats from back in the day. The album opens with the smooth Maynard Ferguson tune “Mister Mellow”, with backing vocals from Tony Momrelle and Deborah Bond. “Down for the Third Time”, the album’s lead single, is a deliciously funky remake of a classic Bobby Caldwell groove from 1978, with Natalie Duncan on vocals and Dominic Glover tearing it up on trumpet. “Mystic Brew” was originally written and recorded in the Seventies by funk, soul and jazz keyboard legend Ronnie Foster and Bluey includes it “to say thank you for his massive contribution to the music we love and are inspired by”. Erykah Badu’s “Honey”, also with vocals by Natalie Duncan, features beautiful trumpet and flugelhorn from Kevin Robinson. The stand-out new songs on the album are “Santiago”, which features the young Indonesian harmonica player Rega Dauna, who starred on the band’s “Hard Boiled” instrumental hit from their last album “Expansions & Visions”, and “In Search of the Blue Note”, with Dominic Glover on flugelhorn and Graham Harvey on keyboards, which Bluey says is “inspired by New York City’s jazz history and nightlife”. Bluey sums up the mood of the album: “I hope that the rhythms wrap themselves around your consciousness and the music slithers into your soul, whilst you bask in the light of the Citrus Sun! Unconstricted love, Bluey”. Citrus Sun is the mainly instrumental-oriented side project which runs alongside Incognito and features many of the same musicians. The band released their first Dome album People of Tomorrow in 2014. In the US they have enjoyed four smooth jazz hits with “Mais Uma Vez”, “Calling Mr Wolf”, “Hard Boiled” and “Thinking of You”.
