- I doubt there’s a person out there who doesn’t feel hard-done-by when it comes to 2020’s Covid19 experience. As always, however, when you’re in Australia, you’ve really got to put your problems in perspective. Even this country’s musos, who are undoubtedly doing it tougher than most, probably have it better than one act out of the pack in particular, Brainbeau, who picked a remarkably poor time to be touring Europe. They now find themselves trapped in Turkey, reportedly one of the worse places on earth to be hunkering down in the face of a global pandemic.
Never fear, the Brissie duo have faced their crisis with pluck and ingenuity. Not just a single pluck either, but a whole album that they recorded in hostels and during homestays across the continent. Sometimes (certainly not always), adversity brings out the best in people and that’s very much the case with Brainbeau’s Infinite Ways. The pair are stalwarts of the DIY electronic scene -mainstays even- so it’s more than a little ironic that their new album, put together in many bedrooms, none of them their own, is the least DIY sounding record they’ve done.
DIY electronica is more than a thrifty method, it’s pretty much an identifiable sound -a genre- and you can hear lofi moments and bargain-basement synth sounds leaking through, every now and then on Infinite Ways. It is, however, one of the album’s core strengths, that it smoothly combines a much greater-than-average number of genre choices across its forty minutes.
As you would have heard on 2018’s Hold On (which sounds like a more appropriate title for the present day), Kat Martin and Chelvis Chesley are still doing their attractive blend of synth-pop and dance beats, but they go really wide on Infinite Ways. It features a rotating selection of electro, dance, new wave, trip hop and instrumental hip hop as well as delicious bursts of exotica.
In a mixtape, thought-bubble manner, there are cuts that sound like songs proper -see Listen Big Change or Endless for example- and a lot of mostly instrumental cuts that should sound like backing-tracks, waiting for Kat to waft dreamily over the top. The thing is, they don’t sound unfinished, they sound great, just as they are. Honestly I think someone like Tricky would be very happy to be spitting over stuff of this quality, these days, but, really, this doesn’t need that.
I’m particularly enamoured of the unexpected Latin outbursts that start appearing on the b-side. Cuts like The Sweet Suite or Brn Sx are a treat: it’s like Brainbeau has been touring South America, rather than central and southern Europe.
I’ve never really believed that crises bring out the best in people; I think that’s a self-congratulatory fib we tell ourselves and one which falls apart when push comes to shove. In light of Brainbeau’s latest I may have to reassess my half-empty glass. I hope there’s a music-industry around to celebrate their success when they finally get back, because in the most unlikely of circumstances Brainbeau has created one of the better records I expect to hear this year.
- Chris Cobcroft.