Ash Grunwald

Ash Grunwald's fifth studio album, HOT MAMA VIBES, is neck-deep in the technological swamp of the 21st Century. It's also the most primal concoction of elemental junkyard soul to stomp through your speakers this year. "Mixing electronica with the blues was always a dream of mine," says Ash, now a 10-year veteran of live stages from Byron Bay Bluesfest to the Montreux Jazz Festival.

"On the first album I was really trying to strip it back to raw elements, just be as soulful as possible. I guess every album since then has been a gradual move towards this point." "On the first album I was really trying to strip it back to raw elements, just be as soulful as possible.

I guess every album since then has been a gradual move towards this point." In fact, the track HOT MAMA has been swirling round the Melbourne singer-songwriter's head since before he laid his career foundations with his award-winning stomp-box debut of '02, INTRODUCING ASH GRUNWALD. "I remember singing that chorus into my tape recorder during my earliest bedroom recordings, 15 or 16 years ago. It's been making me laugh ever since," he says. "It's not something I would have put out there in the past. I would have constrained myself; I wouldn't have felt comfortable. This is my fifth album so it was time to just launch in there, do whatever I felt like."