Br'er - Virtual single on Everything is Chemical

Benjamin from Br'er let me know about a free digital EP they released in conjunction with the Everything is Chemical blog, which I was just checking out today. When they mentioned they were applying their dense carnivalesque technique to a Throbbing Gristle cover I had to have a listen. That's another band I've been barely scratching the surface of, the 33 1/3 20 Jazz Funk Greats book waiting on the shelf. The track they cover here is "Persuasion" actually from that album and here they take a minimal electronic approach with guest vocals for Cosey's part in the original and her vocal is breathy, buried in echo, sounding a whole lot sweeter than the source material, which of course equals a perfect demented twist on the original delivery. The plodding glitchy rhythm track is accompanied by whirring mechanics and beaten metal, coming out of nowhere, placing this solidly in a haunted space. Big wave synth slowly leads the beat around, further down that dark path and the vocal heads into the sinister sampled part, and a nearly a capella section. A great update to something that has to be intimidating, where do you approach a cover like that? Capturing the same kind of dread with your own twist. Br'er pulls it off to the point of wanting to reexamine the original, and that's the best kind of cover.
"Dozen Dream" has this great Magnetic Fields style polyrhtyhmic style, somehow crafting a really catchy optimistic feel out of unusual percussion and melody that should be inherently dark. It's heavily electronic but doesn't feel overly programmed or mechanical, just completely bizarre and unique songwriting. Insanely dense remaining essentially pop, somehow like Xiu Xiu, Benjamin is rewriting what pleasurable pop music can be when taken to this single minded endgame. the energy keeps rising on this one all the way to the end. Br'er stays impressively surprising and this one is no exception.

The final track "Empathy" has a real live sound, the dynamics on a loose rattly snare, shuffling around with a delicate harpsichord sounding instrument providing that weirdo turn where you have no idea where this could end up. Benjamin is closely mic'd and brings a vulnerability to the track, on the verge of a raw, naked breakdown. When the first movement slows down, he dives further into those primal polarizing emotions of killing and love. It's always epic, in part to his dreamlike narrative style, and the mastery of every type of instrument. Organic forgotten sounds, massive booming toms...just arranging this is impressive, but the amount of melodies and sounds coming together is solidly orchestral, a huge pallet of melodies. Some people get hung up on a blank page, Br'er on the other hand has a solid, exacting idea of how to fill it.

This one is free at their bandcamp, or listen below:

CMJ - Br'er at Lit Lounge - 10-19-10

I caught up with Darian from Edible Onion Records at the Lit Lounge for his show with Br'er, it was a perfect compliment to Emanuel earlier in the day, the classical instrumentation at this intimate venue...well maybe that's not exactly the right word...the Lit Lounge basement is barely one step up from the Charleston...there's some weird couches built into caves areas. At least there's a bar in the back, but it's what makes NY venues great, use every crazy possible space.
Benjamin Schurr is the mastermind and vocalist behind Br'er and they brought an eclectic array of instrumentation, Benjamin was at points playing a harmonium and kick drum while Darian switched mid song between glockenspiel and bass clarinet. The recordings are just bases to jump off with completely different live reinterpretations. On a track I didn't recognize, the cellist, out of nowhere, created that saw-like high warble with a sustained operatic soprano vocal.
Br'er is densely packed with metaphorical imagery, and Benjamin ranges from a quiet controlled vibrato to an impassioned tortured delivery. Lyrically unsettling, they do everything to separate themselves from any kind of sentimental, comfortable pop. It's full of Siamese twins and strangely ugly things that have a voice. They have a single minded direction that isn't like anything else.



It's like you stepping into that forgotten sideshow tent on the edge of the carnival, like Neutral Milk Hotel, Br'er is taking you in bizarre emotional directions with sounds you're unlikely to hear together like this.

Interview with Darian from Edible Onion Records

Darian from Edible Onion Records sent me his latest split single of his own project Br'er and the Hermit Thrushes and last week I ended up giving him a call about his handmade, small run label.
You can download it here.

They also have a pretty incredible handmade book accordion style CD compilation featuring watercolors from Darian and a slew of Philly artists, you can pick up at his website.

Sample tracks on the podcast from Edible Onion Records featured are:
Br'er - Endometriosis and The Chord and the Fawn - Right as rain

Br'er / Hermit Thrushes split on Single Girl Married Girl Records

Br'er creates sprawling eclectic compositions that teeter between free form modern classical and eccentric pop. Someone who can put together cello, a warbling handsaw (played by Edible Onion's own Darian) and a harp gives you some idea of the mind able to conceive of these dense layered compositions. It recalls a romanticized dusty nostalgia of old black and white photographs in the attic, broken ancient machines from carnival side shows in the basement. You want to go look, it's probably the most interesting place you've ever been, but you wouldn't be surprised to find a part of a body under that drop cloth.

Br'er utilizes all kinds of production on 'Answer back Al', painstakingly recording live gong strikes to electronically chopping up a shaker to produce inhuman tempos, which changes constantly throughout the track, massive changes, abruptly stopping and having no relation to each other. It's completely scizophrenic, theatrical and impossible. It remains an organic experiment, there's a constant interplay between the sweet familiar sounds of classical instruments and the sometimes harsh machinery of alien sounds. To even be able to envision this, to plan for the recording process...I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it.

'Endometriosis' is as complex as the medical condition... done with a haunting simplicity and gypsy rhythms of Beirut. Benedict's vocals remain a delicate element, an angelic Sufjan sounding soprano. The whole time spent building of an immense fragile song structure which then is shattered with the clatter of a washing machine?...I know it's in there somewhere.. All of this combined with the imagery of the sleeve and insert it breeds a kind of unsettling package. Half nightmare and half redemption. Benedict is an incredible talent you hear immediately the first 30 seconds, the range of emotion and single minded composition is insanely rare. Right alongside Xiu Xiu, creating a baffling, unique audio cabinet of curiosities.

Hermit Thrushes have a lot to live up to on their B-Side and they answer back with 'What happened to your hand'. It's an intricate acoustic guitar finger-picked oddity like Gastr del Sol's weirdo minimalism, the starts and stops, the untuned guitar bursts. This evolves into Firey Furnaces explosions of operatic rock, intricate outstretched narratives and moments of complete unharmony. Choruses of unusual vocals and instrumentation.
Bone and Shell, the next one (yes this is a 7") is deliberately scattered, carefully on the verge of collapse, ambient sounds of kids playing punctuated by bursts of metal, they're playing with everything here...it's an ensemble of like minded chaos and the results are overwhelming. I'm glad I can enter both of these worlds in small doses of 7 Inches because it feels like a full length.

Amazing sleeve art from Sam Heimer, it's a great overall collaboration, really well thought out...these three work together creating this accessible freak show.....a really crazy ride from both sides.

Available from Single Girl Married Girl Records or Edible Onion.

Br'er on Edible Onion Records

Darian from Edible Onion records asked if I wanted to give one of these super handmade releases a listen. I'm seriously grateful he was able to send me one of these Br'er singles which are limited to just 300...the work that went into this is really impressive.
Both sides of the sleeve have windows of vellum where a painting on inner sleeve shows through. There are even painted cutout cardstock inserts with credits handwritten on the reverse. Not even the vinyl single itself escaped painting, the inner label is color coded and lettered as well.

The handmade painstaking quality of the sleeve absolutely reflects what's happening on the record. It completely adds to the entire experience of this recording....here's this delicate object that was literally painted by someone hundreds of times in their apartment, in countless steps of complication...drying, cutting, lettering...it's preparing you for the work...the blood and tears that went into the songwriting.

Benjamin Schurr has an amazing vocal quality on both of these sides, it's what I keep coming back to over and over. The thing I can't get over to even pay attention to the music...it's really the focus, for me, on both of these tracks. He's got an intimate high falsetto voice...a little more conventional than say a completely schizophrenic Xiu Xiu, or hoarse cracking Conner Oberst but it has all the epic tragedy. The content of someone completely stripped bare, and (pun intended) ....pulling it off.
There can be too much sharing, and this confessional intimacy can easily fall apart if not just carefully finessed. It's a careful combination of ingredients. It's nothing you can even duplicate...you know if you have it or not. Is that 'have-it' going to be different with everyone? I don't think so...I think when someone is completely sincere in their openness, it shows in the music. It helps to be talented...to have an ear for arrangement, to be skilled at composition, when you open up your diary to the world, and it better be honest. There's nothing easier to write off then being overly self aware....who wants to listen to an egotist? Himself.

As much as I'm really examining the vocals and why something like this is immediately of the caliber of Jeff Magnum, I do want to get into the orchestration which is insanely complex, and when I say orchestration, I mean it, I'm not just referring to an arrangement of the guitars and bass. This is an array of weird percussion, a beat consisting of multiple objects being struck in odd time. There's a harp, a saw...nothing ever gets gimmicky, or overused. You wonder what got these guys together in Philadelphia to construct this. It all works under a pop umbrella, but the pieces are impossible to pin down. Like watching a choir ring those bells individually, each person plays one ringing note...it doesn't even make sense on an individual level. I know they have to be amazed listening to their own song. It's a magic trick every time.

It's completely live sounding, this has been recorded all at once in a room, and there's no tour dates listen on Br'er's website and I'm beginning to wonder if, like with everything too great to be true, everyone has since moved on to other projects. This being so taxing emotionally and musically, they couldn't keep that kind of effort up forever, and it just collapsed under it's own weight. God, I'm writing their obituary already...they just have me in that tragic mood, where the most beautiful things are ephemeral...like the availability of this single.

Get it on Edible Onion

Side A
I'm A Kid Again (Geltabs Version)

Side B
I'm Sorry Mom (Angelic Version)

Edible Onion is proud to announce its first vinyl release, a 7" single from Br'er, featuring alternate recordings of "I'm a Kid Again" and "I'm Sorry Mom." The two tracks orginally appeared on Br'er's debut full length "Of Shemales and Kissaboos," and have long been audience favorites in Br'er's live sets.

The version of "I'm a Kid Again" featured on the 7" was orignally recorded by Audio Confusion in Mesa, Arizona, during Br'er's first US tour. "I'm Sorry Mom" was recorded mostly live by Dan Angel in Philadelphia on his digital sixteen track. The songs as they appear here capture the raw, chathartic sound that characterized the group's early live performances, and differ dramatically from their melancholy readings on "Of Shemales and Kissaboos."

As with every Edible Onion release, each "I'm a Kid Again/I'm Sorry Mom" 7" is packaged in handmade art. For this release, each record jacket has a hand painted outer jacket, with vellum windows cut out to reveal a hand painted inner jacket. The painting was done with a mixture of acrylic and watercolor paint on oak tag (outside) and American Masters printmaking paper (inside). All of the text is handwritten.

The release is being done in a limited run of 300 records.