一聽音樂網

Menkena is Jimmy Menkena (guitar, vocals), and friends. Swathed in controlled undulations of droning guitar howls and arid vocals, Menkena's ambient folk sound creates a palpable tension that holds listeners captive. Each song starts as a gentle folk rendering, and ascends to an explosion of dreamy atmospherics. Their brand new album, With You I'll Travel, is a rich textural experience that guides the listener through deep and dark wonders of a certain kind of space travel – a sort of REM-cycled floatation over snow capped mountains, lush green forests and the driest of deserts. Songs like "Spiders" and "Rocketships" calls out to the gypsy in all of us, with lyrics like "On the breeze high and high, No one breathes the air up here, an ocean gleamed from her eyes, There she rides on a cloud, Come with me I'll take you around." It's next to impossible not to embark on that journey with them. They are also well known for their live shows, which feature exclusive video projections made for each song by producer Steve Gaddis – some of it even consisting of actual vintage NASA footage of planets and shuttle take-offs. The band's sound is a major departure for frontman Jimmy Menkena, who cut his teeth on the grit and rawness of old school punk rock, and who formed and played guitar in the New York based INDK, a guttural punk rock outfit discovered by Tim Armstrong of Rancid/Hellcat Records. After the band's demise in 2001, Jimmy found refuge in a collection of acoustic recordings he'd compiled over the years on cassette tapes. These tapes of over 50 riffs and melodies were eventually boiled down to a nine-song demo he made once he moved from the bustle and struggle of Brooklyn to a settled down Dallas. Soon after, he happened upon a few musicians who could take the one-man-band demo and give it the full effect it deserved. Now, with a full band, a new album and video projections, Menkena presents an experience seeped in holistic, ethereal ambience and intense vocal fragility.