Bells Are Ringing

"Bells Are Ringing" is an introduction to the peerless Boogie of Melbourne 10 piece band Mondo Freaks.

The band was formed and revolves around the rhythm section of Luke Hodgson and Graeme Pogson. Hodgson is one of Australia's most in demand session bass players and Pogson was one half of acclaimed futuristic Boogie duo GL and has been the long term drummer in Melbourne Funk & Soul trailblazers, The Bamboos. The players in Mondo Freaks are some of Melbourne's finest players with five incredible vocalists including Jade McRae, Susie Goble, Francisco Tavares, Aaron Mendoza and Jason Heerah.

Originally a conceptual cover band with an ever evolving setlist of Funk, Boogie and Disco classics, specifically to connect the dots between the original recordings and highly coveted samples in Hip Hop, RnB and Pop songs. Over 10 years of sporadic residencies in Melbourne and various festival appearances, a cult-like following was formed.

The next shift, a pivot to become a house band of sorts for the very artists that they were covering. They were invited to tour Australia as the backing band for the Boogie King himself, producer and artist, Leroy Burgess (Black Ivory/Logg/Aleem/Inner Life/Universal Robot Band). Following that were two tours with the inimitable Evelyn "Champagne" King. Both artists found that they didn't need to school the band on the set – Mondo Freaks had already been worshipping and playing their music for years.

With the last Evelyn "Champagne" King tour almost running into worldwide lockdown in March 2020 the band needed to keep productive. So new music was written and recorded in-between snap lockdowns and challenging group restrictions live to tape. It was a love letter to the Boogie era in composition, performance and production.

After a cold call email their new music ended up being mixed by Grammy winner Michael Brauer, who has mixed (literally) some of the biggest names in music history, including The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Coldplay, Tony Bennet and Paul McCartney.

But the Mondos inspired him more than any project he'd asked to mix as it reminded him of the music that he started his career working on: Change, Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Gwen Guthrie, Morris Day and so many more classics of the late '70s and through the '80s.