| The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band | ||||
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 One of two covers to the album: the other features four nude women with snakes wrapped around them, posed around a piano | ||||
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| Released | February 26, 2021 | |||
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| Length | 37:50 | |||
| Label | Dunham | |||
| Producer | Tommy "TNT" Brenneck | |||
| Menahan Street Band chronology | ||||
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The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band is the third full-length studio album by American rhythm and blues group Menahan Street Band.
Editors at AllMusic rated this album 3.5 out of 5 stars, with critic Mark Deming writing the "music frequently plays like a collection of soundtrack pieces to forgotten movies and television shows of the '70s" and "the vintage-style compositions, arrangements, and production are almost spooky in their accuracy". [1] In Spill Magazine , Gerrod Harris gave this album a 4 out of 5, calling it "a sound that could set the tone and atmosphere of a Tarantino film" that has "a complete vibe that while founded on nostalgia and reminiscing for the past, is driven by excellent musicianship and strong songwriting". [2] In a 7 out of 10 review for Under the Radar , Mark Moody called The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band "a cohesive listen" while criticizing some tracks as weaker than others. [3]
Menahen Street Band
Additional personnel
Daptone Records is a funk and soul independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York. Best known as the home of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and Charles Bradley, the label boasts a roster which includes Menahan Street Band, The Budos Band, The Sugarman 3, and Antibalas, and runs the recording studio Daptone's House of Soul.
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings were an American funk and soul band signed to Daptone Records. They were part of a revival movement of mid-1960s to mid-1970s style funk and soul music. They released their debut album Dap Dippin' in 2002, the first of seven studio albums. Their 2014 album Give the People What They Want was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. Following Sharon Jones' death in 2016, the band released the posthumous album Soul of a Woman in 2017 and a compilation of cover songs in 2020.
Version is the second album by British producer Mark Ronson, first released on 16 April 2007 through Allido and Columbia Records. It is an album of cover versions with a retro-inspired sound that Ronson considers to be reminiscent of Motown and Stax releases. The album cost more than £870,000 to launch. Version reached number 2 on the UK Albums Chart and has sold 105,584 copies as of January 2015.
Nick Movshon is a bass guitarist, drummer and songwriter best known for his considerable contributions to the New York funk and soul revival. A frequent contributor to the recorded output of Brooklyn-based labels Daptone Records and Truth & Soul, he has spent the past two decades playing with Charles Bradley, Lee Fields, and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, and as a member of groups including Antibalas, Menahan Street Band, and El Michels Affair. He is also a founding member of The Arcs and has toured with The Black Keys.
The Budos Band is an American instrumental band from Staten Island, New York, formed in 2005. AllMusic describes the group as a "doom rock Afro-soul big band with a '70s touch" that joins "musical universes from trippy psychedelia and Afro-funk to '70s hard rock and late-'60s soul." They have described themselves as "70's Psychedelic Instrumental Music," and "Afro-soul inspired by Ethiopian music with a soul undercurrent" and "sprinkled a little bit of sweet 60's stuff on top." One reviewer described the band as “sounding as if Quentin Tarantino was the music supervisor for a Bond film". Their more recent albums have incorporated sounds from 1970s jazz, funk, Afro-Beat, underground rock, and proto-metal. They have been signed to Daptone Records throughout their career.
Menahan Street Band is a Brooklyn, New York–based instrumental band formed in 2007, that plays funk and soul music. The band features musicians from Antibalas, El Michels Affair, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and the Budos Band. The group was founded by Thomas Brenneck while living in an apartment on Menahan Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. Their debut album, Make the Road by Walking, was released in 2008 on Dunham, a sublabel of Daptone Records and was followed by The Crossing in 2012.
All in One is a studio album by Bebel Gilberto, released on 29 August 2009 by Verve Records.
Speak a Little Louder is the second studio album released by singer-songwriter Diane Birch. The lead single is "All the Love You Got". Birch's singing and composition evokes sounds of Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac. Birch's father died of cancer earlier in 2013, and she wrote the album to make sense of her past. Birch stated "Going through losing somebody was a very spiritually transformative experience to me, so some of the songs [I had initially planned for Speak a Little Louder] didn't feel relevant. Hanging on to that facet of rebellion in my past became irrelevant."
The Arcs are an American garage rock band formed by Dan Auerbach, the guitarist and vocalist of the Black Keys. The band consists of Auerbach, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and formerly Richard Swift, who died in 2018. They released their debut album Yours, Dreamily, in 2015. Their second album, Electrophonic Chronic, was released in January 2023.
Yours, Dreamily, is the debut album by The Arcs, a side-project by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. The album was released on September 4, 2015.
Changes is the third album released by American funk/soul singer Charles Bradley, released on April 1, 2016 on Daptone Records. The title track on the album is a cover of the Black Sabbath song of the same name and was first released as a Record Store Day Black Friday single in 2013.
Thomas "Tommy" Brenneck is an American guitarist, record producer, and engineer, best known as the leader Menahan Street Band and member of The Budos Band, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, and El Michels Affair. He is the founder of Dunham Records, a subsidiary of seminal retro-soul label Daptone Records, and was the producer of soul singer Charles Bradley. As a producer session musician, he frequently works with Daptone and Big Crown Records artists.
Homer Steinweiss is an American drummer, songwriter, and producer known as a prominent drummer in the New York soul revival scene. He is a founding member and drummer of groups including Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Lee Fields & The Expressions, Hardly Knew Ya, El Michels Affair, and Dan Auerbach's The Arcs, among many others. He leads the Brooklyn folk soul band Holy Hive with Paul Spring. A popular session musician as part of The Dap-Kings and in his own right, he is perhaps best known for his work with Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse, with whom he recorded the 2006 album Back to Black.
Texas 25 is a compilation album by Scottish rock band Texas, released on 16 February 2015. The album was released to celebrate the band's 25th anniversary and features eight reworked Texas tracks along with four new songs. A 2-disc deluxe edition of the album was also released, with disc 1 featuring the same track listing as the standard version of the album and disc 2 including the original versions of 15 of the band's biggest hits.
Soul of a Woman is the seventh and final studio album by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, released on November 17, 2017. Sharon Jones had died from cancer the previous year and the album features her final studio recordings.
Black Velvet is the fourth and final studio album by American funk/soul artist Charles Bradley, released on 9 November 2018. The album release was preceded by two singles, "Can't Fight the Feeling" and "I Feel a Change". The name of the album comes from Bradley's stage name during his time as a James Brown impersonator. The album consists of songs originally recorded for Bradley's three previous studio albums, and was compiled by producer Thomas Brenneck after Bradley's death from cancer in September 2017. Included are covers of "Stay Away" by Nirvana and "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young.
El Michels Affair is an American cinematic soul group led by musician and producer Leon Michels. Based in New York, the group is noted for its wide-ranging influences, analog production approach, and hip hop collaborations. The group released its debut album Sounding Out the City in 2005. After touring behind Raekwon and other Wu-Tang Clan members, the group recorded the popular cover album Enter the 37th Chamber in 2009. After releasing other tribute albums in the following decade, El Michels Affair returned with the original albums Adult Themes in 2020 and Yeti Season in 2021. Since then, the group has released collaborative projects with Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, Liam Bailey, and Black Thought, including 2023's Glorious Game.
Leon Marcus Michels is an American music producer, record executive, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known as the leader of the eclectic soul project El Michels Affair and co-founder of Truth & Soul Records and Big Crown Records. He is a founding member of soul and funk bands Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band, and Lee Fields & The Expressions, and has played with Charles Bradley as well as Wu-Tang Clan. A frequent collaborator of Dan Auerbach, Michels was a touring member of The Black Keys and co-founded The Arcs. As a producer, Michels has produced records for artists such as Lee Fields, Norah Jones, Chicano Batman, Nicole Wray, and Hanni El Khatib.
Piece of Me is the third studio album by American singer Lady Wray, released on January 28, 2022, by Big Crown Records.
The Crossing is the second full-length studio album by American rhythm and blues group Menahan Street Band. It has received positive reviews from critics.
