reviews / 2015

BRUTTER - Brutter

Name: BRUTTER – Brutter
Item: Brutter
Rating: 6
Author: Michele Saran

2015 (Hubro)

electro

by Michele Saran

Essentially a reunion of two Norwegian brothers, Christian and Fredrik Wallumrød, both with well-documented careers, Brutter, with its self-titled and probably one-off track “Brutter”, is on the surface a duet between drum machine and electronics unfolding across two long stretches.

The ambition behind it actually draws as much from the trembling blows of early Swans as from the irregular patterns of Autechre, as much from the phasing of minimalism as from the fugue-writing of Baroque music.

The first track, “Geigered” (14 minutes), opens with slow, bouncing blows of low frequencies that gradually coalesce into a kind of Native American pow-wow dance, though an uncertain and barely sketched one. Meanwhile, some industrial clanging thickens into a mysterious counterpoint, eventually crumbling and further draining the momentum. Unfortunately, the even longer and even more polyrhythmic, jazzy “Badminton Bleak” fails to capitalize on these ideas, merely repeating them and even muddling them up.

A noble attempt to codify an alien language, one weighed down by a musical — or non-musical — fiber that's too subdued and didactic to also carry charisma and a genuine vibration. Still, there are moments of imploded apocalypse worth the consideration. Limited-edition vinyl.

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16/07/2015

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Michele Saran, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition