Lance “Lanu” Ferguson is to The Bamboos what Will “Quantic” Holland is to Quantic Soul Orchestra. Let that sink in for a minute ’cause it’s damned accurate. Outside of his day job, leading the Australian pure-funk, live-instrument Bamboos, Lance evidently puts in a lot of hours behind a laptop. There he produces the clean juice breaks we’ve become accustomed to hearing from the Brighton-based Tru Thoughts, running the funk gamut from more organic QSO style beats to liquid Rick James porn cheese. He tends to follow the latter a little too much for my liking.
While Quantic and his band are at least within earshot of each other on the spectrum, This Is My Home and The Bamboos' debut practically disagree with each other. Step It Up channeled the soul of funk, born when James Brown allowed Gawd to create him, but this album comes off totally comfortable with merely hammering away at the most cornball aspects of the genre. It feels like that was taking the easy way out. That’s somewhat disappointing too, because the LP starts out on a fairly high note. “Conversations (Intro)” rides a sampled spoken introspection into the creative process behind the making of music over a smooth, atmospheric hip-hop beat, sadly walking away as the album highlight before the album even begins. Aside from the like-minded “It’s Time,” which could easily be confused for a Lyrics Born track, the rest of the album keeps picking away at that polished, synthetic, upbeat scab I didn’t much care for in the '80s and don’t like much better now. It’s a fine line between cheese and mold, and this debut is looking mighty green.
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