Review: BRUIT ≤ ‘The Age Of Ephemerality’
It is hard to try and remain neutral these days when it feels like the world is pushing you to take a side. Even the simple act of consuming music has become a potential moral battlefield that can shed a lot of light on the attitudes of some towards fair pay for the artists they support, and the platforms they choose to do that through.
French experimental/post-rock/modern classical collective BRUIT ≤ came to life ‘from the ashes of several pop bands’, with the project conceived as a way of being free from creative restraints. With no initial desire to take to the stage, their origins centred around research and experimentation in the confines of the studio, which ultimately led to them making their live debut in Toulouse following two, live-in-the-studio, recordings.
Their first official release came in 2019 with the debut EP Monolith and was followed by the digital, self-issued album The Machine is burning and now everyone knows it could happen again, which saw them sign with German label Pelagic Records at the end of 2021, and a physical version would follow shortly after in 2022.
Three years later, BRUIT ≤ followed that innovative musical tour de force with their sophomore full-length The Age Of Ephemerality. Written in mountainous isolation and recorded in a church, using the original 1864 organ and a host of collaborators from the Toulouse scene. The band created a sonic temple of contemporary instruments and tech alongside bold experimentation using the organic resonance of the structure that dates back hundreds of years to find their inspiration.
This musical concoction was agonised over in their home studio, Studio La Taniere, and Toulouse’s Studio Capitole to birth a dense and complex sound that seeks to traverse lofty philosophical goals and comment on modern society through the intricate soundscapes they created.
Which is where it becomes hard to separate the ideology of BRUIT ≤ from the music. The Age Of Ephemerality continues the band’s steadfast commitment to keep their music off all major streaming platforms, in particular Spotify.
The motivation for this comes from their protest at ‘the platform’s consistently diminishing artist payout policies as well as billionaire CEO Daniel Ek’s recent investment in the arms trade’ and the album itself is a comment on the reliance of the current ‘algorithmic malaise’ and the stale artificiality of the modern digital age. Through the latest album, they seek to spurn society’s reliance on the casual convenience of ‘technocratic tendencies’, highlight injustices and capture genuine human connection and creativity.
discordant and disjointed as the vibrant sounds jar against the tumbling drums and manic electronics…
Ephemeral starts with a glitching organ and groaning strings that positively drip with beauty like a rising film score, before the reverberating drums usher in a clashing maelstrom of electronic sounds. This combination grows in a suffocating fashion, the stripped back instrumental nature of the band’s work means that any symbolism or meaning is attached subconsciously, and the pressure builds until it finally breaks. In the dying moments of the track, the relief comes in the form of mellow, drifting piano and pulsing, picked guitar.
Continuing the glitching stutter, Data sparks into life with faltering drum and bass like rhythms and clashing effects. Vivid samples about the future you want to see collide with garbled techno babble ahead of the band breaking into a high tempo, driving dance beat with deep, underlying chord progressions. This lush sound continues until, following another sample, the wheels fall off and the track becomes discordant and disjointed as the vibrant sounds jar against the tumbling drums and manic electronics. The concluding guitar is this time interrupted by more off kilter detours.
Starting with an almost Americana flavoured guitar that bends and warps, Progress/Regress sways with a laid-back groove. This is joined by wheezing strings and light drum hits that give the piece a delicate, orchestral feel. When they let go into full post-rock atmospherics, the shift in mood is powerful, dramatic and striking. Somewhere deep in this crescendo is a natural, shining and soulful significance that cannot be understated, and this euphoric feeling is uplifting until they start disrupting the flow towards the end.
Despite that title, Technoslavery/Vandalism ushers in organ and the soothing electronic guitar orchestra with a stark beauty resonating with the cathedral like feel of the setting in which it was recorded. This beauty grows in assertiveness until nagging beeps start to punctuate the end as loops and pinging notes herald the end of the first half of the second longest track. The subsequent half is a darker, more moody post-metal piece with clashing sounds that grate with mechanised coldness, descending into deconstructed refrains and a monk like choir.
The Intoxication Of Power floats with classical sensibilities that remind me of Das Rheingold: Entry of the Gods into Valhalla, either that or I have spent too long trying to get to the bottom of why Alien: Covenant is such a cinematic misfire. From this, trip-hop beats appear and the sci-fi orchestra strains similar to Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack seep through.
The longest piece on the album shifts through phases that range from swirling, lofty movements of sublime glory and technological experimentation that evoke a lasting emotional feeling, amplified by the powerful speech on the subject of the title that draws the album to a close.
Described in their press statement as ‘a harrowing yet profound reminder that the only way to break algorithmic malaise and see real change is to resist’, The Age Of Ephemerality doesn’t feel like a protest album, instead it offers light and shade through the contrast of this sumptuous organic sound that is frequently corrupted by the mediums that represent the algorithm and technological enslavement. The bleak sign off of Orwell’s famous quote about the future leaves the listener with the stark choice, ‘The moral is a simple one, don’t let it happen, it depends on you’, a profound statement and one I wholeheartedly endorse.
Label: Pelagic Records
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram
Scribed by: Mark Hunt-Bryden
