Album Review

Menahan Street Band – Make The Road By Walking

• 25th Jan 2009

Perfect instrumental soul jazz to watch and feel Brooklyn by.

Never veering from its path of killer horns and pounding funk ‘Make The Road By Walking’ is none the less compulsive listening. A collective of Brooklyn finest musicians pulled in main from Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings by musician/producer Thomas Brenneck guitarist for Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings and The Budos Band, Menahan Street Band have pressed a record so out of tune with the times that it stands alone. This is music to day-dream movies to. It’s rare that music is so beautifully produced and orchestrated, the love and affection etched in to every bar seeps out of this stunning score so that you’re not only avidly awaiting the next change up but also sucking in the smoke heavy atmosphere.

Kicking off with title track ‘Make The Road By Walking’, which alongside ‘The Traitor’, ‘Montego Sunset’ and ‘Going The Distance’, is the stand-out that bursts from the speakers with such gusto and confidence it seems we’ve known these lines forever. The pure addiction of the trumpets and sax rightly take the frontline but it is the deep bass, incessant heavy drums and 70s jazz funk organs that blend the textures and drip realism into these cinematic pieces. This is a vital top quality recording of songs that will go down as instant underground classics.

‘Make the Road by Walking’ is pure vintage but absolutely of the moment – the first ever soundtrack for a film as yet unwritten.