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LOCATION: NYC
GENRE: Disco Punk Brass Band
INFLUENCES: Gang of Four, David Bowie, Prince, Talking Heads, Undertow Brass Band, !!!, Balkan brass music, EDM, metal, hardcore, punk, funk and disco
CONTACT: funkrustbrassband@gmail.com
Music:
ABOUT THE BAND
For post-apocalyptic Funkrust Brass Band, brass band is a form, not a genre. The band of 20+ musicians, which features megaphone vocals, a percussion section and full complement of trumpets, trombones, tubas and saxophones, draws its sound from the worlds of post-punk, disco, EDM, metal, experimental music, Balkan music, and funk, counting among its influences including Gang of Four, David Bowie, Prince, Talking Heads, Undertow Brass Band, and !!!. All of the band’s songs are originals by the songwriting team and real life couple of composer Phil Andrews and lyrics by vocalist Ellia Bisker (also of the goth-folk duo Charming Disaster).
Funkrust Brass Band’s latest album, Make a Little Spark, came out in October 2024 via streaming, CD, and cassette. The album also marks the band’s tenth anniversary and third release. For Make a Little Spark, the band crammed all twenty-plus horn and percussion players into The Creamery, a loft studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn where folks like Sleigh Bells, Antibalas, and Innov Gnawa have laid down tracks. All of the horns and percussion were played live with only vocals overdubbed.
Funkrust Brass Band has performed on New Years Eve and Halloween at the McKittrick Hotel (home of Sleep No More), the New York Botanical Garden, the EDM festival Mysteryland in Woodstock, NY, O+ Festival in Kingston, NY, Joe’s Pub in NYC, Brooklyn Bowl (NYC), and the HONK brass band festivals in NYC, Providence, RI, and Austin, TX.
Videos:
FOUNDER/BAND BIO:
The band was founded in 2014 by brass band scene veteran Phil Andrews. The band’s songs are all originals by real-life Bushwick, Brooklyn couple Ellia Bisker and Phil Andrews, with Andrews composing each song and Bisker contributing lyrics. Bisker, a published poet, has had success with her other band, goth-folk duo Charming Disaster, who have opened for the Dresden Dolls and whose songs have been streamed over 3.5 million times on Spotify. Andrews has recorded, played live and written songs for many bands and projects, from the radical marching band Rude Mechanical Orchestra to the floating art boat collective Miss Rockaway Armada to the queerpunk band Gay Panic. He wrote and produced an indie musical about labor strikes called We Shall Not Be Moved, and was the musical director and instrumentalist in the play Mt. Rushmore throughout performances from 2018-2024.
The project was conceived as a brass band from a future dystopia, dedicated to bringing hope to the survivors: in this post-apocalyptic world, the only bands left are those that can play without electricity or sound equipment. The music of the apocalypse isn’t death metal—it’s brass. Each of the songs addresses that audience in a different way-- from the examination of loss and despair to the collective catharsis of high energy dance music.
The band formed in 2014, and since then has played a wide variety of venues, festivals and events throughout NYC and the East Coast. Some notable examples include appearances at the underground art party series Rubulad, immersive events at the McKittrick Hotel (home of the wildly popular Sleep No More), cultural institutions like the New York Botanical Garden, the EDM festival Mysteryland in Woodstock, NY, the annual Sinterklaas festival in Rhinebeck, NY, opening for World Inferno Friendship Society at the Mercury Lounge and the HONK brass band festivals in NYC, Providence, RI, and Austin, TX. Funkrust’s debut album, Dark City, was released in 2017, followed by the ambitious song and video cycle Bones and Burning in the fall of 2019 and the latest release Make a Little Spark, released in late 2024.
PRESS
"It’s an upbeat album that is easy to sing along to, but more importantly it’s easy to dance to. The biggest problem the record has for the listener is that it makes it impossible to not want to catch Funkrust live and in person right away."
- rBeatz review of Dark City
"Funkrust Brass Band waste no time opening the album with their signature song, Funkrust. Catchy tuba bassline underpinning its rat-a-tat trombones, cinematically rising trumpets and undulating groove, this mashup of Balkan brass and American funk sounds like an even more epic version of iconic Brooklyn band Slavic Soul Party."
- New York Music Daily on Dark City
"Prior to hitting play limber up your hips, knees and most importantly ankles as Funkrust Brass Band take the listener on a journey that demands much of the lower joints in a roughly twenty five minute, seven track, release of unrelenting strutting dance."
- Emerging Indie Bands preview of Dark City
“The title track, and most distinctively chromatic, Balkan-flavored anthem from the debut album by New York’s largest and most explosive brass band.”
- New York Music Daily, naming “Dark City” one of the year’s 100 best songs