Galliano cover Eddie Chacon on new single “Pleasure, Joy & Happiness”

Galliano are sharing their cosmic, uplifting take on ‘Pleasure, Joy & Happiness’, the title track from Eddie Chacon’s 2020 record. Galliano add a sense of urgency and playfulness to the soft-funk of Chacon’s original, taking the melancholy and breathing new life into it.

Speaking on the new single, band founder Rob Gallagher says: “Seeing Eddie Chacon perform “Pleasure, Joy, and Happiness” at Clapton’s ‘Church of Sound,’ and also being in the crowd for his afternoon set at the ‘We Out Here Festival,’ I felt a strange French disco version trying to get out. A year or so later, when we had reformed Galliano, this was the first thing we jammed in the studio. Ill-prepared but suitably attired, lyrically, it has a lightness of touch that spoke to us trying to move something forward while simultaneously taking what we were and are with us, without nostalgia.  When performed live, we’ve managed to weld Maze’s ‘Joy & Pain’ on the end for all the lost soul girls and soul boys”

Almost three decades on from their last release, Galliano returned last month with new single ‘Circles Going Round The Sun’ and news of their new LP ‘Halfway Somewhere’ which is being released on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings on 30 August. The band are also setting out on a run of in-stores in support of this, full dates listed below.

On ‘Circles Going Round The Sun’, the first single to be lifted off their new album, Galliano founder Rob Gallagher meditates on what gathering together in clubs means, whilst referencing dance culture sages like Andrew Weatherall and David Mancuso next to writer George Mackay Brown and artist Mark Leckey.

​​Often miscast as torchbearers of the Acid Jazz scene of the early ‘90s, Galliano were in fact always far more multifaceted and complex. Both of their time and ahead of it, they created a prescient collage of poetry, astral jazz, cosmic funk, conscious soul, dub reggae and dance floor rhythms. “They were the first group to really make the connection between club and jazz culture – the opening line to a space that would later include groups from The Comet is Coming to Ezra Collective,” says longtime supporter Gilles Peterson.

Three decades on, Galliano are back with a new LP ‘Halfway Somewhere’ released on Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings label. While age brings its inevitable distractions and distance from the cutting edge of youth, Gallagher’s genius in gathering fragments of club culture, documenting his urban environment, and addressing broader global concerns is as sharp as ever.

Born out of London’s underground clubs and warehouse parties of the mid to late eighties, with the debut single on the Acid Jazz label in 1988, Galliano came out of a culture that spanned music, dance, fashion, art, design, and the written word.

When they arrived as the first act on Gilles Peterson’s Talkin’ Loud label in 1990 with ‘Welcome to the Story’ (produced by Chris Bangs who invented the term Acid Jazz) dressed in Gabicci sweaters, beads and skullcaps they captured a scene built on re-invention. “We were all playing around with what we could get our hands on whether that was a seventies book on Jamaican style or old Last Poets and Watts Prophets records,” says Gallagher. “We’d been recycling things for a few years but suddenly everything had coalesced and you’ve got an amalgam that seemed quite solid.”

For their first album since ‘Live at The Liquid Room (Tokyo)’ in 1997, Rob Gallagher and his partner, vocalist Valerie Etienne, are joined by Galliano stalwarts Ernie McKone on bass, Crispin Taylor on drums, and Ski Oakenfull on keys (with guests including saxophonist Jason Yarde and percussionist Crispin ‘Spry’ Robinson).

Galliano UK instore tour dates:

30 August – Resident, Brighton

31 August – Banquet, Kingston

01 September – Rough Trade East, London
02 September – Vinyl Whistle, Leeds
03 September – Jacaranda, Liverpool
04 September – Vinilo, Southampton
05 September – Pie & Vinyl, Southsea

Galliano UK tour dates:

19 November – Blues Kitchen, Manchester

20 November – Lantern Hall, Bristol

22 November – Shepherds Bush Empire, London

Galliano – Halfway Somewhere tracklist

1. Brownswood Rockers / Golden Shovel (Someone Else’s Idea)

2. Dancin’ Your Own Time

3. Limebike Getaway

4. General Rubbish vs The Sportswear Mystics

5. Tottenham

6. Crow Foot Hustling

7. Numbers Click

8. Circles Going Round The Sun

9. Golden Shovel 2

10. Jazz

11. Halfway Somewhere

12. Of Peace

13. Move As One

14. In The Breaks

15. 57th Min / Power and Glory

16. Kingsland Road

17. Cabin Fever Dub

18. Euston Warehouse

19. Pleasure, Joy & Happiness