Melbourne DJ, producer, and keyboardist
Harvey Sutherland (aka Mike Katz) dives deep into a retro-sounding blend of funk and jazzy soft-soul on his full-length debut, 2022's
Boy. It's a potent, clubby, crate-digging vibe he's been conjuring since at least 2014's Brothers EP, and which he's continued to perfect on other EPs, including 2017's Expectations. These are hooky, groove-oriented songs that evoke the glistening, robot-alien funk of artists like
George Duke,
Andre Cymone, and groups like
the System. While there are vocal songs here,
Sutherland primarily crafts instrumental tracks that have the feeling of an extended remix of a pop tune with the vocals removed. Still, cuts like "Age of Acceleration" and "Slackers" are as hooky as any diva-led dance club anthem. Of the vocal tracks,
Sutherland brings along several guests, including
DāM-FunK, who lends his dusky soulfulness to the
Cameo-esque banger "Feeling of Love," while "Type A" featuring sos (aka
CLAMM frontman
Jack Summers) evokes the '80s motorik Krautrock of bands like
Kraftwerk and
Neu! While
Sutherland has provided backing vocals on past songs, here he takes the lead on "Holding Pattern," a song that magically captures the louche, Hawaiian-shirt-and-mirrored-aviator aesthetic of artists like
Steely Dan and
Bertie Higgins. Many of the instrumental tracks are just as evocative, with cuts like "Michael Was Right About You" and "Time on My Side" bringing to mind the cognac and disco afterglow atmosphere of a '70s dinner party. Those tracks, as with pretty much all of
Boy, sound like forgotten library music recordings from the '70s and '80s, rediscovered and reworked by
Sutherland. ~ Matt Collar