Surprise Chef Set October Release for Cinematic Funk Mixtape ‘Frogs In A Pond’

Melbourne instrumental group Surprise Chef have announced a new mixtape, Frogs In A Pond, due October 23 via Concord Jazz.

The 13-track project stays close to the band’s analogue, DIY take on vintage soul and funk, but pushes it toward a more explicitly cinematic register. The group points to Italian soundtrack composers Piero Umiliani and Piero Piccioni, listing Camille 2000 and Colpo Rovente as reference points, and structures the tracklisting as if scoring a film that doesn’t exist. The result is less a collection of songs than a set of imagined scenes, with the sequence carrying narrative weight rather than simply moving from one groove to the next.

First track “Leg Day” leans on the near-telepathic interplay Surprise Chef have built within Melbourne’s tight community of players. It is lithe and groove-led, with the rhythm section carrying the kind of small gestures that usually only surface after long hours of playing together.

With the mixtape, Surprise Chef are refining their position not as revivalists, but as musicians using old tools to build new instrumental logic. The October release gives that approach a broader, more visual frame.