BRUTTER - Reveal And Rise

The new protagonists of the Norwegian music scene have the seemingly innate gift of combining a methodical approach with the total freedom that only improvisation can offer. The talented brothers Brutter are no exception (a semantic redundancy hidden by the linguistic gap), who debuted as a duo in 2015 on Hubro, the flagship label in promoting this fervent national scene, with their hybrid arrhythmias.

It is certainly the live context that makes clearer the original dialogue Christian and Fredrik Wallumrød carry on between the past (jazz avant-garde) and a "futuristic" present (IDM and minimal techno), while now more than ever, listening in the studio leaves no doubt about the shift to a fully electronic instrumentation.

The second effort "Reveal And Rise" preserves, and indeed accentuates, the unmistakable detachment of the current Scandinavian generation, pushing the surgical approach of Supersilent almost to the brink of the reductionism of the most uncompromising Pan Sonic. Perhaps only in this sense should the emblematic title of the opener "Easier Listening" be understood: not an easy listen, but easier than the unpredictability of free form, following trajectories whose development never takes sharp turns, even though the engine of the machine is always running and under tension. If here too the intent is typically non-descriptive, one is easily infected by the nuclear-nightmare atmosphere of "Your House", while "Fallfinish" puts into play assembly-line rhythmic patterns and dub-style delay. "Stand To Downfalls" sounds like a vacuum-sealed abstract hip-hop beat, whereas the similar "Hide And Sink" receives instead the schizoid treatment of the latest Autechre.

Each of these elements may make "Reveal And Rise" (and at first glance it does) look like a synthetic, "sterilized" copy of existing trends. But if the Brutter brothers win the challenge in such a surprising way, it is precisely because of their essential estrangement from these disciplines, from the tools of the trade that they approach like curious entomologists, ready to dissect and reassemble the raw material into many possible variations, more or less familiar.

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15/06/2017