Luna '68 The City Champs

• 1 Luna '68 03:55
• 2 Lockdown City 03:17
• 3 Mack Lean 04:33
• 4 A-Meld-a-Marcos 04:41
• 5 Hanzo 04:39
• 6 Skinny Mic 03:11
• 7 Freddie King for Now 02:51
• 8 Thinking of You 04:48
• 9 Voyage to Vega (For Felix) 06:14
• Total Runtime 38:09

Info for Luna '68

The return of the Memphis soul/funk/jazz trio The City Champs. Members, Al Gamble (St. Paul & The Broken Bones), George Sluppick (Chris Robinson Brotherhood) and Joe Restivo (Don Bryant) have been secretly concocting these tasty, solar expansing nuggets since their last output in 2010.

The rich analogue synth sounds that Al Gamble brings to this new number are a new flavor for the group, though it sits nicely with their command of groovy ’60s vibes on previous albums The Safecracker and The Setup.

As Gamble notes on this new element in the Champs’ sound, “It’s kind of a new thing for me. Even though I was in high school in the ’80s, when it was kind of a big thing, I was never really a synth guy. But over the last few years with St. Paul and the Broken Bones, there’s been some synth added to that.”

It’s a perfect match for this Restivo composition, which evokes some of the vintage soundtracks he’s been known to favor, especially with his other outfit, Detective Bureau. “I’m real into Piero Umiliani,” Restivo notes. “He’s an Italian film composer, and the stuff he did in the late ’60s, early ’70s had a futuristic sound to it.”

That retro-futuristic resonance comes through loud and clear with the accompanying video by filmmaker Andrew Fleming, which features mysterious astronauts encountering landscapes beyond their ken.

The City Champs:
Joe Restivo, acoustic & electric guitars
Al Gamble, organ, synthesizer
George Sluppick, drums, percussion

The City Champs
first came together 14 year ago. The Memphis-based instrumental trio, which features guitarist Joe Restivo, organist Al Gamble, and drummer George Sluppick, then released two celebrated records, 2009’s The Safecracker and 2010’s The Set-Up. However, the three musicians were then drawn into different directions with Gamble joining St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Sluppick appearing with JJ Grey & Mofro, while Restivo, a member of the Bo-Keys, backed artists such as Don Bryant and Percy Wiggins."

This album contains no booklet.