Award-winning hitmakers GoodLuck have released their latest offering and unlike their previous albums, this one is an acoustic album.
Titled “Up Close”, it also features the song that started it all for the band, the haunting piano rendition of “Together Like Rum and Cola”.
Known for their blend of instrumentation with electronic dance music with an African edge, this time Ben Peters, Juliet Harding and Tim Welsh are offering something with a twist.
When Harding sat down at the piano and first explored a new way to interpret the hit single of “Rum & Cola”, she never realised it would be the start of something far bigger. For a band that have spent 10 years mastering their electronic sound, it is startling to hear how well they have segued into a completely new chapter.
Compiling a list of what seems like their best hits, the band have reinvented itself with this brief foray into the acoustic world. “We just weren’t in the right headspace to put out another electronic record, so we had to do something totally different,” said Harding.
Pulling together a dream team of South Africa’s best musicians, including Shen Winburg, Lumanyano Unity Mzi, Nick Williams, Ross McDonald, Lee Thomson and Ryan McArthur, and under the guidance of Ben Peters – who produced the record – they have achieved a sound that belies their inexperience in this genre. “It just felt crazy to not explore an album’s worth of songs after hearing Jules’s version of ’Rum & Cola’,” said Welsh, who plays sax and keys in the band.
“Together like Rum & Cola” is the fourth and lead single off the acoustic album.
“I love how music can have different shades. We have a song that was originally written as an uptempo pop song, then we strip it back to a piano and vocal and we have a truly emotional and fragile love song.
“It has been so important to me to show a more vulnerable side of who we are and to go a little deeper with this album. I have fallen in love with these songs all over again,” said Harding.
Living in a pandemic has not been easy for anyone, however, the band took cues from the world around them and used the time introspectively, finding ways to give new meaning to their music in a pandemic that has the world turned upside down.
“Jules set the tone with her performance on ‘Together Like Rum & Cola’. She captured something quite magical and transformative, and we had to apply that to the rest of the album which made sure we had our work cut out for us,” said Peters.