The Bamboos look set for a big year at home and abroad with the release of their album 4. The Bamboos are Australia’s masters of Deep Funk and Super-Heavy Soul led by Lance Ferguson (aka Lanu) who talks about the new album and the WOMAD experience.

What is the outlook for 2010 like for The Bamboos? “We’ve finished a new record which will be coming out on March 29. I think we’ve got a big year ahead of us in terms of touring and promoting the album. It has been a good chance for us to relax and regroup before we dive in to that stuff.”

Is the album sonically much different from what we already know? “I think it is! I think it is! I’ve tried to make it with the song writing that it’s still coming from where we’ve come from and this time for me it was important to say this isn’t a deep funk album or neo soul album or whatever label people want to put on the record. The focus was really to define what The Bamboos do and write some songs based on that. We’ve been playing some of these new songs at recent shows and the response has been good. Hopefully people enjoy the new record.”

Has the live experience shaped the new record or is it something else? “I think it ends up being a bit of both. I think there a few other influences like that mod-rock sound coming through whereas the last album had that northern soul influence coming through. This album is a return to a more dirty and darker kind of thing with one track featuring the sitar, there’s some that are a bit sound trackie so I’m looking forward to hearing what people think of it. I spent a lot of time writing the songs and in the compositional process and I’m happy with what’s been turned out so far.”

How was the studio experience? “Well, this time we had a bigger budget to work with so we had the luxury of sitting down in the studio and trying different things out. Often its been rushed when we’ve made previous albums but this time Daniel Farrugia brought in a whole bunch of different drums and had the time to try out a whole bunch of different drum parts with snare drums and cymbals and so on. It had a lot more time and detail put in to it, which is good. The guys in the band look like a really close knit community so when we do stuff it’s always cool and we’re all on the same page with what we’re trying to do.”

Will it be a huge buzz playing WOMAD for The Bamboos? “Yeah, it’s a festival we haven’t played before and we’ll be playing two sets, one on Saturday and the other on Monday. Often we kind of rock in to these things, rush there and do the set and pile out. It will be great to do the set, have a night off, check the festival out then do another set. It will be a good way to do it actually.”

Tickets are selling like hotcakes to WOMADelaide 2010 and are available from Venuetix.