Andre Bratten – 7th Level Music

Top 20 singles of 2019: #’s 20 – 16

As always, there are a lot of good singles out there every year and picking just twenty to highlight is difficult, but here goes.

#20 – Andre Bratten – “HS”

Good heavens, the opening bass on this cut from Pax Americana is alone worth the purchase price. It’s one of the hottest house music singles I’ve heard in years.

#19 – BODEGA – “Shiny New Model”

“You will be replaced by a shiny new model” is the first lyric in this sharp single, and on the album of the same name, by these NYC post-punkers who remind us that not only are we replaceable, but we often encourage others to forget us and don’t even realize we’re doing it.

#18 – Durand Jones and the Indications – “Morning in America”

Speaking of songs that throw a heavy punch at modern times, this soul cut is beautiful and brutal. “It’s morning in America, but I can’t see the dawn” might be the hardest-hitting lyric of the year on the most soulful record of the year.

#17 – CHAI – “Fashionista”

It’s difficult to pick a favorite part of this post-punk jam from Japan. Is it the fun vocals? The fat bass? The sizzling high hat? The message to be yourself and not care what others think of you? It’s probably all of it.

#16 – L7 – “Stadium West”

This song was a triumphant return for L7, who blessed us all with their first new album in 20 years – Scatter the Rats. The track is a solid rocker that keeps their snark and shreds.

Who’s in the top 15? Come back later today to learn!

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Review: Andre Bratten – Pax Americana

“I’ve always been fascinated with how a sound can make you feel without being something you can touch,” Oslo-based DJ and producer Andre Bratten writes in the press release I received for his newest album – Pax Americana. Recorded in a studio he built in his garden after stepping away from late night DJ sessions at clubs around the world, the new record is indeed an evocative piece that changes your perspective and makes you move.

Lead single, “HS” (one of my favorites of the year so far), is a great example of this. It’s bubbly yet laced with a little darkness to keep you grounded as you let it sink into your feet to get them tapping. The title track, comparing the current state of the U.S. to the Roman Empire, has an underlying nervous tick that bumps against soothing synths. I’m not sure if Bratten is trying to tell us Americans that everything will be all right, despite what some may fear, or the reverse of that message. It works either way.

“426” continues the dark themes, with bass lines that slow to a creepy crawl while up-tempo electro high-hats move like a rattlesnake around you. The gothic “Commonwealth” is like an Art of Noise track if Art of Noise decided to make synthwave music for horror films that take place in the year 2999. “Ranx” goes further down the darkwave rabbit hole to the point where you’re not sure it’s fading out or lulling you into a trap. The closer, “Recreation 26B,” starts with a simple beat and then builds like a rising morning tide with bright synths. It’s the kind of track that tends to take you by surprise. You’re enjoying the opening riffs and then find yourself in another mental place by the end of it and wondering how you got there. It’s a worm hole in space and time.

Pax Americana is a soundscape more than a dance record. It’s a soundscape for your garden studio, your garden party, or your mental garden (which, let’s face it, all of ours need cultivating).

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Andre Bratten releases funky new single, “HS,” ahead of full album due June 28th.

Norwegian producer André Bratten is pleased to announce his new album, Pax Americana, out June28th via Smalltown Supersound. Additionally, Bratten shares the funk-beat driven lead single, “HS.”

Listen to “HS” —
https://soundcloud.com/smalltownsupersound/andre-bratten-hs/s-GKRBI

In just five years, Bratten has established himself as a mercurial and uncompromising figure in modern-day electronics. After earning a reputation as a serious performer with a dark, cavalier side through his live shows and DJ sets on the European club scene, Bratten moved from the center of Oslo to the suburbs. The change of scenery had a positive effect on every aspect of his life, allowing him to focus on his young family and studio work. It took him a year to build his new studio in his garden, and then another year to patch all the hardware together again and relearn his music-making process. The first tracks to emerge from his suburban base surfaced last year on Smalltown Supersound as a series of three 12-inches. These are lush, driving funk cuts swaddled in curdled synthesis that find Bratten exploring a new way to conjure the spirit of the acts he loved in his early teens: Boards of Canada, Autechre, and the late Drexciya producer James Stinson’s The Other People Place and Transllusion projects.

Pax Americana presents three of the series’ softer tracks, alongside three new numbers which add a shade of menace to the record. Following his debut LP Be a Man You Ant released on Oslo label FullPupp and his previous Smalltown Supersound releases “Math Ilium Ion” EP and Gode, Pax Americanapresents Bratten using a pragmatic approach. He deliberately produced these track in an old-fashioned, analogue fashion, restricting himself to an 808, an old sequencer, a reel-to-reel tape and a vintage mixer that once belonged to ABBA in the 1980s. Bratten bought the desk from a rockabilly musician in Norway who’d acquired it from a Swedish TV station. Describing the bubblebath boogie of Pax Americana, he says: “I was trying to make a steady dance record without being swooshy. When I started listening to techno as a kid there wasn’t this melodic stuff, so the record is more of a vibe, a feeling.”

Across a handful of sketches, Bratten has sketched out an enchanted vision of the world – a kind of psychedelic dystopia – as he seeks to fuel his lifelong obsession with sound. “I’ve always been fascinated by how a sound can make you feel, without being something you can touch,” he says. “I’ve always been more interested in sounds than music.”

Pax Americana Tracklist:
01. HS
02. Pax Americana
03. 426
04. Commonwealth
05. Ranx
06. Recreation 26B

Pre-order Pax Americana —
http://smarturl.it/sts356-preorder

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