The Funkrust Brass Band is a 20-piece "post-apocalyptic disco-punk brass band playing all original music with megaphone vocals, heavy tuba bass lines, thundering percussion and searing brass melodies." If that doesn't scare you off then they have albums and videos you'll probably love.
The band is part of a growing brass band scene in Brooklyn. They reached out even while acknowledging they might not be a perfect fit for this paper because I had previously covered a similar large ensemble of young New Orleans musicians called the Wit's End Brass Band. Wit's End has a Spanish tinged classic New Orleans sound, Funkrust is more experimental and modern.
The heart of both groups remains in the street brass personified by New Orleans parades. The Funkrust sound will feel more unusual to someone coming from an EDM background than someone familiar with the Rebirth Brass Band or New Orleans jazz.
The group formed in 2014, the vision of Phil Andrews and his partner Ellia Bisker. She writes and sings the vocals, publicly leading the band at appearances. She also leads the band Sweet Soubrette, and is half of the goth-folk duo Charming Disaster.
Andrews is a veteran of the 30 piece marching crew known as the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, the bluegrass punk fusion group Apocalypse Five & Dime, and the Miss Rockaway Armada, an art project that sailed down the Mississippi from Minnesota
