The title track off of Butcher Brown's eighth album #KingButch begins with a standard "1...2...mic check" and ends with a command, "Write me a check!" It communicates one of the often-maligned aspects of musicianship, ie getting paid. There is a lot of consternation over money and its effects on the music industry, and not without good reason. But let's be real with each other. The music industry IS an industry. Businesses like record labels and streaming services are not producing and distributing music because these things are important to people. They do it to make a profit! This motive is often in conflict with the integrity of the art that it produces, and a lot of what gets made wouldn't have a reason to exist if someone didn't think they could sell it... But, that's all normal capitalist stuff. This is not an article about material economies, this is an album review. And what's more, when we narrow the lens to focus on the individual musician or band, who only have their music and a whole lot of soul to keep them afloat, the picture changes. At that level, getting paid is a hard pinch and scrabble for survival, and if someone wants to get their hands on what a musician has in their head, they better be willing to put a stack in that player's hands.
In this respect, music is possibly one of the few forms of inalienable labor, as it will also be stamped with the soul and dignity of the person who produced it. Music cannot simply be cudgeled out of a person and then heaped on a stack of surplus in some offshore account. Systems of extraction are going to take what they need from you while keeping you at arm's length, only sharing what they have to to keep the money flowing. However, if you're the only one who can do what you do, you can hurdle some of these stone curtains put between producer and taker and get what you're owed. A musician has the power to gain an audience with the king and demand that their hands be filled with gold on one side and Champaign on the other. Short of overthrowing the king, this is as good as many of us can hope for and it's more than a little inspiring to see someone demand that their dignity as a human person be recognized and to see the mighty trip over themselves to bestow all due respects upon them. Like any art that's worth more than the air you expel to expound on it, #KingButch is not just a payday. Rather it's an exploration of sound and moods that can set your mind free if only you will let it into the court of your inner sanctum.
"Fonkadelica" kicks the switch on the smoke machines and light displays to set the vibe for #KingButch with skronky p-funking grooves and floating shimmying swagger, with the title-track's struggle resighting and rough-start rise lyricism recounted and intoned by Marcus “Tennishu” Tenney's chewy, fatback flow. The blubbery jump of the first track is snatched up and run with like a quarter bounced off a marble countertop outside an old school video arcade on "Broad Rock." The juicy, confidence amplifying swing of that track drips deliciously like bacon grease pouring over a plate of fried potato skins and thick-sliced turkey breast, leaving a delicious trickle of tantalizing sound that will lead you into scrumptious sonic smorgasbord "Cabbages (DFC)" which takes us from the Bootsy bump of the opening track to the sense tingling spiritual, seasoning of Earth, Wind & Fire with it's smooth and punchy chords, splashy synths, and move-bustin' beat. If you need to stop this ride at any point to go pick up some dry cleaning or something, don't leave without first hearing the show-stopping acid jazz and funk-fusion of "Frontline," whose golden tone-glow and echoing skitter of caterpillar footed chords and the butterfly kissed smirk of its sax solos will help cleanse your soul of its burdens and give you a head-bobbing melody to skate through the rest of your day humming as its reverberating sensations rumble through the soundboard of your cerabelium. And if that tracks helps unlock something in you, forget whatever else you planned, and let the tropical fusion of "1992" lift you through an air conditions lap around some big boss basslines and the transcendent breeze of the Mtume retaining groove clasp "Love Lock" coast you home to a deserted beach where you can bronze up and get sip of something cool to calm your nerves. Put this low-key luxury flyer on while you contemplate how to keep a fatter slice of whatever part of yourself you're handing over to your boss, and keep thinking and clawing that bit of you back until you've got the whole pie to yourself, and your boss and everybody else is on their knees, just begging for a taste. Here is to you, getting and keeping yours, from here on out.