Solid Bronze – The Fruit Basket (180 Gr)

Delaware Valley’s psychedelic funkateers Solid Bronze are releasing their debut album The Fruit Basket after having great success with their first single release in June, “The Invisible Man” including the B-Side Dub Mix by Lee “Scratch” Perry. The album was recorded at a relaxed pace from Spring 2017 to Spring 2018 by Mickey Melchiondo (Ween, Dean Ween Group, Moistboyz) at his studio in Lambertville, NJ with additional tracking done by the core band members in their respective home studios. Melchiondo produced the record along with singer/songwriter Chris Harford and mastered by Tom Ruff (James Brown, Lester Young, Screaming Females) for Asbury Media in Asbury Park, NJ. The album also features several notable guests including guitarist Michael “Kidd Funkadelic” Hampton (Parliament, Funkadelic), saxophonist Dana Colley (Morphine), and Atlanta-based hip hop artist CLEW. Harford and Melchiondo added vocals and a range of instrumental touches. The end result sounds like the output of group twice the size of number actually involved, a massive nasty get-down groove with all players giving everything they’ve got. Drawing on so many diverse influences and featuring notoriously genre-bending musicians, it’d be as misleading to call The Fruit Basket a Funk record per se as pigeonholing it as Rock or R&B. This music was designed to exist in its own time and space, not be crammed into any pre-existing mold.