Homebound Kid – Not So World Famous album

It’s finally here! The first Homebound Kid album by departure and butterfly boy on Lemon Hed Records called ‘Not So World Famous’ – and it’s great.

If you like William Maranci’s Meat Mountain or the Avalanches you’ll love Homebound Kid and their plunderphonic album of blends – less ‘mashup’ or bastard pop and more experimental and sample-based, but that doesn’t mean any less accessible, with roots in hip-hop beatmaking, big beat, funk, prog and electro.

I already loved and indeed have played The Girl I Knew (that intro is from a Masayoshi Takanaka track) on the podcast and in the stack is the psych funk of What Is A DJ sampling Egyptian Lover (and is that a little bit of Brian Wilson saying ‘here we go?’).

And spoilers, there’s another one on 348 I’ve just recorded which might be Tomorrow’s Song which blends Kraftwerk, Love Unlimited Orchestra, Chandra – also sampled by Avalanches – and what sounds like the cover of ‘I Wish I Knew What It Was Like To Be Free’ by Andra Day but I could be wrong. Those looking for something a little more mashup will love the Elvis/JXL meets Stevie Wonder’s Superstition funk horns and George Clooney sampling She Already Left Me Once.

I like the jazz prog electronic beats of Switch! – like a some sources on the album I recognise them but cannot remember where they are from, it’s a hypnagogic haze, like the spacey electronica strings in this one which sounds like one of the space disco album cuts from Ganymed or obscure European cosmic disco/electro b-sides I used to listen to a lot.

I do although recognise the Ernest Gold (Moby) strings, Bob James – Mardi Gras and classic hip-hop samples like C.L. Smooth and Sugarhill Gang of Not So World Famous.

It’s a very deep dive of samples you probably know from elsewhere, say DJ Shadow or Fat Boy Slim or Bomb the Bass, but taking it back to the source. If you’re a fan of those folx, I think you’ll dig this.