Braindouche ! – Hyphen

So firstly, this artist is called Braindouche !. That scores points. Second, the cover art is great… a lovely monochrome photograph of some steps and stuff. I’m not doing it justice really but it is a lovely photo. Thirdly, this was submitted for review and play by a listener. So thank you very much Braindouche ! but these points cover only the least salient aspects of any album release. The most important thing is the music itself, which falls squarely under drone.

So it is seemly then that track is called “Drone 6”. Now those of you who read my review of Stuntcock a while ago will remember some beard stroking I did about the nature of noise, and how it is difficult to say why it is good or bad; just that it is. Well, the same can be said of drone. There is little tangibility to the music. It just is and does something to your brain. The pieces fit well on “Drone 6” , although at under four minutes it is a little short. Cold and eighties sounding it works well, unlike “Vistas” with its new age-y synths and wave samples, which sounds like a self healing CD from some hippy grotto. Next up is “14 Space 1” which is excellent. Something about it really resonates, the synths all sound spot on and there are a couple of wobbly / oscillate-y hooks that leave this track sounding like an off cut from the Apollo soundtracks by Brian Eno. “Summer Solstice” has some arpeggiated twiddling that is listenable but not spectacular, while “Chikka Bom” is the kind of pointless messing about with drum machines that I thought I had heard the last of in 1989. “Yettu” is another high point in the album and sounds like the audio hallucination of an FM radio by an overheating robot in a mirage. Last track “Surely” is a little in joke for Braindouche ! (…surely it’s not going to do this for 8 mins ) but it didn’t make me laugh.

All in all, this album is worth downloading for “Yettu” and “14 Space 1” and you can get it here http://www.braindouche.net/ Why not go and obtain it for yourself so you can see just how inadequate I am at reviewing records ?

Kim Monaghan