Menahan Street Band: The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band (direct exclusive, green vinyl) [DAPTONE]

Why you'll love it

This direct exclusive comes on green vinyl in a gatefold jacket with a download card. It was the band's first album in ten years, led and produced by Thomas Brenneck with players from the Dap-Kings, El Michels Affair, the Budos Band and Antibalas.

This edition

• Green vinyl
• Direct exclusive
• Gatefold jacket
• Download card included
• Stereo mix

About the album

Hip hop fans have been hearing Menahan Street Band for years without always knowing it. Jay-Z built Roc Boys (And the Winner Is) on their song Make the Road by Walking, and Kid Cudi, Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent have all borrowed from them too. The band started in Thomas Brenneck's apartment on Menahan Street in Bushwick, which explains the name rather neatly. The players also make up the backbone of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and several other Daptone bands.

This is cinematic, slow-burning instrumental soul, all reverb, vibraphone and horns. Dave Guy's trumpet and Leon Michels's saxophone carry the melodies over Nick Movshon's bass and Homer Steinweiss's drums, and Brenneck produced it for Daptone's Dunham imprint. "Midnight Morning" opens on a hazy, widescreen sway, "The Starchaser" and "Queens Highway" feel like lost film themes, and "Snow Day" and "Devil's Respite" bring the mood right down.

Their sound sits somewhere between a '70s crime thriller and a Sunday afternoon. Ten years between albums, and they came back sounding as if they had just popped out for milk.

Also at Kops: more Menahan Street Band on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Dunham / Daptone (cat# DUN-1008), the 2021 album.