Falter Bramnk / Minimal Romance
Album: Minimal Romance   Collection:General
Artist:Falter Bramnk   Added:Feb 2006
Label:Acidsoxx Musicks  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2006-02-19 Pull Date: 2006-04-23
Week Ending: Apr 2 Mar 19 Mar 12 Feb 26
Airplays: 1 1 2 3

Recent Airplay
1. May 11, 2013: Music Casserole
Shleep On It (For R.W.)
4. Mar 09, 2006: Rock in a Position
Shleep On It (For R.W.)
2. Mar 28, 2006: Eclectica: With Ashish
Waltz For Lon Chaney
5. Mar 07, 2006: eclectica: with south asians
Headwork And Dancing Feet, Waltz For Lon Chaney
3. Mar 14, 2006: Eclectica
God's Garden (Psychelectropromantic Song)
6. Feb 25, 2006: Biff Bang Pow
Ainsi Va T'il...

Album Review
Ben Wolfson
Reviewed 2006-02-18
Prog, of a sort, but this album is hard to sum up as a whole, as many tracks sound nothing alike, and many of the tracks feature significant changes in their own duration. Nothing quite as jolting as Naked City or Mr. Bungle's switch-ups, but enough to make a summary difficult. Some tracks (which ones are which are noted) sound like Hamster Theatre, Boud Deun, or projects by Edward Ka-Spel; there are techno elements in some and ECM-like jazzy soloing in others. Reading individual track descriptions will probably be your best bet.

Best: 8, 4, 3, 1, 12 (first part).

1: Lighthearted with acoustic guitar, childlike keys; "bum bum bum" in the lyrics. Occasional some guttural grunts and a distorted riff enter, followed by a spacy part with sparse playing. Ends after some buzzsaw guitar riffing.
2: "Wacky" a la Hamster Theatre or their fellow-travelers (L'ensemble rayƩ; Cro Magnon; Louise Avenue). Whimsical melody and odd instrumentation. Has a very appropriate title.
3: Midtempo rocking prog-out, focus on the ensemble. Guitar and maybe violin? This is fairly similar to Boud Deun, though with a larger instrumental palette---shifting time signatures etc. Vocal interlude about 2' in is followed by a feedback solo.
4: Dedicated to Robert Wyatt. The vocalist here does an outstanding impression of his later sound---you won't mistake the one for the other, but it's very evocative and in the same spirit. This is synth-heavy, much like, in fact, Wyatt's recent work, and has a slow, laid-back tempo in the first half. Nice melodic violin playing. In the second half the tempo picks up with a bright, spritely bass line (though the bass timbre is frankly not so hot sounding).
5: Starts with some long sustained tones, sounds like maybe a slightly distorted organ. Drums come in after 1:15 or so and the track develops some dark atmosphere. Then, a percussion breakout, drums and mallet, with swooshy sounds to accompany; vaguely live techno feel. Ends with some ambient tones and samples of what might be waves.
6: Vocals starting this one out sound like hoarse shouting. Repetitive vintage keyboard line comes in with some groany sounds. Vocals in the main of the song are a lugubrious tenor. The parenthesized tag for this track ("psychelectropopromantic song") is fairly accurate, except for the "romantic" part. This has some minor-key darkness; it's similar in spirit to some Legendary Pink Dots or Tear Garden (and in fact the vocalist is a lot like Edward Ka-Spel).
7: Multisectional. Same lugubrious vox. Minimal backing at first (drums that sound machined, background drones, some violin), then at 2:05 starts changing to a slow sad harmonized solo (similar to Mike Oldfield's from "Little Red Robin Hit the Hood" in style, though this is slower), then a medieval-sounding section with wheezing organ and thumping drums; then a very Tear Garden-ish section, with a brief trumpet solo. This section ends the song with massing horns. (ends -:09).
8: Song is mostly in a chanteur-mode, with just vox and piano. Song in French. Some electronic blips and chaotic percussion rattle in the background occasionally, to very nice effect. Some nice slow & emotive solos: trumpet, flute, sax.
9: Multitracked vocals with a fairly active drum loop underneath. This is a pretty straightforward poppy track (except for the occasional outburst of noisy feedback from a guitar) in the beginning; after 2:20 however the drum track becomes increasingly prominent in its own right and gets treated in odd ways.
10: Opens with a high female vox sample; flutter winds and keys over odd-metered shuffly percussion.
11: Melodramatic vox accompanied by what sounds like toy tuned percussion and squiggly analog synth, with some clicks and pops thrown in for good measure. Ends -:11.
12: Two parts. Opens w/ acoustic guitar, operatic sample. Accordion, cymbal and keys all enter in at various points to give an old-country nostalgic feel. -5:00 change of gears; massed vocals, acoustic gtr and washes, not unlike what a more upbeat Morricone might produce.
Then -4:04, silence until -3:12 with a very short riff; silence again until -2:43 with the same riff on another instrument turning into a French-accented country-rock song. This actually goes to the end and is pretty good.

Track Listing
1. Recall Of The Souls   7. She's Far From The Land (Popfolkchromatic Song)
2. Waltz For Lon Chaney   8. Ainsi Va T'il...
3. Headwork And Dancing Feet   9. White Knight In The Night
4. Shleep On It (For R.W.)   10. Isis Nocturne
5. Exodus (Intestinal Transit)   11. Les Toxiferes
6. God's Garden (Psychelectropromantic Song)   12. Fun Desperado