...a new subsidiary of Daptone Records. From the heart and soul of Tom Brenneck, aka Tommy TNT, guitarist for Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings & The Budos Band, comes a sound at once mysterious and empowering. It is almost inconceivable that recordings this lush and brutally lovely in it's nakedness could come out of the smallish privacy of a musician's bedroom in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
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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.
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Out NOW
Charles Bradley & The Menahan Street Band
"The World (Is Going Up In Flames)" B/W "Heartaches and Pain"
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There is a raw feeling on this record that cuts to the bone. As Daptone's newest imprint, Dunham Records gives birth to her sophmore seven, and a proud mother she should be. Charles Bradley has lain his soul bare on this wax. THE WORLD (IS GOING UP IN FLAMES) features the Gospel Queens on backing vocals over an arrangement by the Menahan Street Band that is as deep and vertigo-inspiring as a glacier carved valley. As Charles bares down with his first wrenching moan, it is clear that this is not going to be a record made of empty gestures.
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