Of Daptone’s team of bands, Budos has emerged as the darkest, the ones with ominous sounds and aggressively driving deliveries, the ones where warm melodies are replaced by intense horn stabs, where arrangements are peeks and valleys rather than sunny strolls. The group’s DNA is made up of members of the Dap Kings, Menahan Street Band, Charles Bradley’s backing troupe, and others from the venerated Brooklyn imprint. This year the Ethio-psych-funk group deliver another batch of theatric songs, Budos Band V, that are equally appropriate for car chase sequences or funeral sunsets. Their latest is foreboding, macabre and filled with echo—at times equal parts Black Sabbath and Pax Nicholas, other times a whirlwind of ideas sputtering about, folded into movements and wild scenic arrangements.
Brian Profilio, workhorse drummer and backbone of Budos, details their working process thusly: “It may seem like writing a song with nine guys in a band might make for a difficult situation, but it’s actually a pretty smooth process,” he says, before explaining the group’s formation…
