Jambonne
Carpet Ride / Touch Down

The Menahan Street Band is a collaboration of musicians from Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings (Dave Guy, Homer Steinweiss, Fernando Velez, Bosco Mann), El Michels Affair (Leon Michels, Toby Pazner), Antibalas (Nick Movshon, Aaron Johnson) and the Budos Band (Mike Deller, Daniel Fodder), brought together by musician/producer Thomas Brenneck (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Budos Band, Amy Winehouse) to record hits in the bedroom of his Menahan St. apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. With influences reaching beyond the funk/soul/afrobeat architecture of their other projects into the more ethereal realms of Curtis Mayfield and Mulatu Astatke, the Menahan Street Band creates a unique new instrumental soul sound that is as raw as it is lush. Their debut album, Make the Road by Walking will be released on Dunham Records, Brenneck’s new imprint of Daptone Records, a joint venture devoted to bringing the Menahan Street sound from Brenneck’s bedroom out into the world. The album is marked by eerily quirky arrangements, featuring vibes, horns, piano, organ, percussion and even a strange bling sound that Brenneck creates by tuning and plucking the strings of his guitar on the wrong side of the bridge. However, it is not the textures themselves that make the new sound of Menahan Street so exciting, but rather the way the sounds are incorporated into the heavy rhythms and bold melodies of the compositions.The title of the album was inspired both by the eponymous community center below Brenneck’s apartment and the natural rhythm that has continued to move this project forward. Shortly after its release as Dunham’s debut 45rpm single, the song “Make the Road by Walking” was sampled by fellow Brooklynite Jay-Z for his smash hit from American Gangster, “Roc Boys (and the Winner is…)” (later declared by Rolling Stone to be the No. 1 single of 2007). Make the Road by Walking is a soulful exploration by a talented young group of musicians into the possibilities of instrumental music; an original, personal, and uncompromised creation that embodies the sound of a select group of musicians in one distinct place, at one particular moment in time. “This album is kind of a window into our world on Menahan Street,” says Brenneck. “In a way, we’re simply the street’s unofficial house band.”

This album is an assemblage……glimpses of tradition…reflections on our collective present…luminous echoes between love and solitude.hope and absurdity.euphoria and mourning.This album grapples with and transgresses these binaries because we have/and continue to cross borders. Yet, for us, the border is no metaphor—too much real staring back at us.We embody the border.We (our families) have crossed it.We (our stories) are coated with its residues.And so… we cross the border of self through our art—out of necessity.This album was imagined while touring the country as families were corralled in cages.We then fled the wildfire of a nascent pandemic poised to (especially) ravage our communities as we recorded in Los Angeles.And our sonic journey concluded in Chicago while the country rebelled against the murderous consequences of policing in the U.S.Through this cascade of tipping points and tragedy, we summoned melody and verse to sound out verdant technicolor dreams of freedom and desire, mirroring the vortex of our time.And borders were at the center of these struggles.Borders—of nation, of belonging—are the struggle.And so, this album is a set of dispatches from that wondrous journey……our journey across and into a sunburst surreal.…our astral meditations on loss and triumph.…our sonic trek across a landscape of trauma and effervescence.…The border divides and defines places—yes. But it is equally a place unto itself—a borderland.It is the forbidden place where we dwell.The enchanting space where we are at home.The bustling city where we reflect.Look into our mirror. See us in you.

Black Market Brass’ sophomore record, Undying Thirst, is a noxious brew of diesel and bleach; a special long-player full of wasteoid rippers for skullduggerous hover-bike gangs peddling fugazi relics and snake oil tinctures. Hellacious guitars, nitrous-charged percussion, a brass section harsher than paint-thinner, and a special batch of short-circuited electronics and synthesizers will leave your head buzzing into the 31st century. Blasting Undying Thirst from your home speaker system is like going over a waterfall in a rusted out oil barrel, long after the sun has boiled the falls dry.LP is packaged in high quality Stoughton Tip-On gatefold jacket, LP stored in an anti-static innsersleeve, and includes a download card. Pressed at Gotta Groove Records in Cleveland, OH.