Song of the Day: Butcher Brown “Cairo”

I first got hip to Butcher Brown via their keyboardist DJ Harrison who also moonlights as a thrilling Madlib/Herbie Hancock hybrid, prolifically cranking out beats that obliterate the lines between composing and sampling.

I connected the dots back to Butcher Brown and dove into a catalog of driving analog jazz funk. On a recent long flight, my iPod was on shuffle as I nodded off. After an indeterminate amount of sleep, I woke up to “Cairo”. I think I kept that tune on repeat until the plane landed. The head of the tune is the best kind of earworm, the kind that you end up randomly singing to yourself over and over. Marcus Tenney’s tone on flugelhorn sells it, then the whole band settles into a tight pocket for tasteful, restrained solos, allowing the groove to predominate. Harrison’s synth lines, synth strings, and comping on the clavinet are all Head Hunters footnotes.

Butcher Brown is based in Richmond, VA. They got some of whatever’s in the water that their hometown neighbor D’Angelo drew from. After building a rep as individual players and as a band down in the Tidewater, they landed a full length LP on Ropeadope Records, 2014’s All Purpose Music on which “Cairo” appears. Here’s a vid of them playing “Cairo” at their Jellowstone Studios HQ. They’re clearly not going to get their security deposit back on that house, but it’s great to observe the group fleshing out this song before they even had a name for it.

Song of the Day: Butcher Brown “Cairo”