Cargo Gold by Brassback

*Cargo Gold* isn’t just another record we cut; it’s the pulse of New Carthage. You know the feeling, that hum in your bones when those massive cargo vessels dock and the refineries groan all night. We pulled those old brass instruments out of the abandoned Meridian Freight Terminal, left there by railroad musicians decades ago. We fixed them up, put our own industrial resonators and steam-powered valves on them because this isn’t about some pristine, polished sound. This is about the grit.

We tracked this album using our "pressure recording" technique, stuffed inside decommissioned shipping containers. That’s why the brass sounds like it’s emerging from the belly of some massive, breathing machine – that compressed, metallic resonance, it’s the real deal. And DeAndre isn't just hitting drums; he's coaxing rhythm from actual steel drums repurposed straight out of chemical plants. It’s that "documentary groove" people talk about, sounds that tell a story while making your body move.

This whole journey, from "Freight Line Awakening" through to "Port Authority," it maps the unending cycle of shiftwork, the peril and the raw promise of industrial life. We wanted to take the confines of shipping containers and the sheer mechanics of the dock, and make them sing. It’s a deep dive into power—how it accumulates, how it gets wielded, and how ordinary hands, folks like us, can redefine it. You’ll hear the grooves shift, from the shadowed despair of forced routine to the blazing catharsis of collective purpose.

"Third Shift Anthem," that one just spills out, a genuine shout-out to anyone on that late watch, finding camaraderie when the city’s mostly asleep. And then "Meridian Rising" hits, an absolute surge of worker spirit, where individual strain builds into something bigger, a collective roar. It’s where art becomes something more, a real form of resistance. We wanted to prove that the mechanical precision of this place and raw human expression, they can actually merge into something entirely new. This isn't just Afrofuturist Jazz; it’s the sound of a city dreaming, grinding, and finding its voice. It’s for anyone who understands the rhythm of the clock and the weight of a day’s labor, and believes there’s still gold to be found in all of it. We poured everything we had into this, hoping it connects with anyone trying to make sense of the world, and maybe, just maybe, spark something.

We forge tomorrow's brass through ancestral rhythms, melting tradition with spacecraft frequencies. Seven horns breathing life into mechanical futures, where our ancestors' spirits ride chrome melodies into dimensions yet unborn.