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Here We Go Magic’s Luke Temple Returns to Solo Life With Funk Come-On ‘Katie’

Luke Temple, 'Good Mood Fool' Cover Art

Luke Temple’s restless muse took him across various styles before he finally garnered some overdue recognition with Here We Go Magic. Temple still has some musical inclinations he can’t properly follow within the relative democracy of his New York-based band, and he found an outlet for them in his first all-new solo album since his 2009 debut as Here We Go Magic (2011’s Don’t Act Like You Don’t Care was recorded earlier). “There’s people in my band who say ‘I don’t want to play anything bluesy’ or ‘it can’t be too funky,'” Temple explains in a statement. “They see those as clichés — but I think if you take those seeming clichés and go into them with full conviction, what comes out when you get to the other side is actually something more unique.”

For new solo LP Good Mood Fool, due out October 15 on Secretly Canadian, Temple used only his voice, a drum machine, a bass guitar, and a Juno-1 synth (read: sounds like the ’80s). Temple calls the record “the favorite thing I’ve made so far,” and you can start to see why with “Katie.” Recalling another name-based song, Beck’s “Debra,” off of 1999’s Midnite Vultures, “Katie” is indeed funkier and more flat-out jubilant than what you might expect from the knotty complexities of his other, recently profiled outfit, Here We Go Magic. Has Temple perhaps been rifling through his old Prince records? Never a foolish move. In any event, a sampled female speaking voice floats behind our man’s flirty coo: “You’ve got a mean body, baby / But you don’t got what I need,” Temple insists. Don’t necessarily believe him. 

Luke Temple’s Good Mood Fool track list:

1. “Hard Working Hand”
2. “Katie”
3. “Florida”
4. “Those Kids”
5. “Jessica Brown Findlay”
6. “Sue”
7. “Terrified Witness”
8. “Love Won’t Receive”
9. “Hardest Working Self Made Mexican”