Rhumba Club - HONCHO

HONCHO is a through-composed album — no gaps, no breathers — tracing Rhumba Club’s experience of queer London throughout his twenties in the 2010s. It is heavily influenced by the work of the legendary Patrick Cowley and steeped in the sound of gay porn instrumentals pulsing with desire, innocence and everything in between.
The album begins with wide-eyed innocence, as Falle recalls being freshly arrived in the city, hungry for connection — and spirals into an odyssey of sexual awakenings, intense nights out, dubious massages, depressive lows, and the quiet violence of social hierarchies within queer spaces. By the end, the narrator is changed: more resilient, more aware, but a little emptier too. “I’ve become a HONCHO,” Falle says. “The word is used playfully, echoing retro queer culture, but it’s also pointed. This record isn’t here to glorify transformation; it’s here to question what happens to us in a culture shaped by apps, image, and performance.”
Almost every track title is lifted from vintage gay magazine headlines — a nod to both nostalgia and critique. Split into 2 parts, Side A of the album holds innocence and romantic hope whilst Side B moves through disillusionment and the uneasy comfort of experience. It’s a bittersweet queer coming-of-age story - sweaty, shimmering, and tinged with sadness.
When Patrick Wolf offered to appear on a Rhumba Club track, Falle knew exactly where he belonged. His vulnerability, his voice, and his story felt like the perfect way to bring the album to an end. The track is the first time Patrick Wolf has ever featured on another musician’s record - testament to Falle’s artistry and vision. The collaboration happened completely organically, when Falle received “a surprising and charming DM for Patrick:
‘Mr R.Club I’ve done two runs this week along the sea and through the graveyard to your album! Thank you so much for the wonderful music.’
That song turned out to be the completely irresistible ‘Animal/Lover’ — a haunting 3am negotiation of sexual dynamics between two lovers. "The arrival of Patrick’s vulnerability, voice, and perspective felt like the only way this album could end,” Falle says.
On Rhumba Club, Patrick says “Since encountering the Love Apokalypto album last summer, the story of a young analogue synthesizer maestro arriving in London from Channel Islands armed with a musical and visual world he has been dreaming up to share called "Rhumba Club" remains a magical foundation I adore that, I am sure will give us all many albums of brilliant
work I cannot wait to experience over the years. It was such an honour to write this song with Tom and to be a guest on the dancefloor at his club, Animal / Lover was the exact vehicle I needed to drive for a brief, sexual escape from the weight of the writing I was working through on my last album, so I am grateful for that opportunity too. All of my synthesizer heroes are one person world creators like Mort Garson, Tomita and Wendy Carlos, I see echoes of all three in Tom and his Rhumba Club.”