(Foxy Digitalis) Every once in a while an album reaches me, of which I have no information on the musician who created it. Which is the case with Andreas Brandal. This is one of the strangest works I have listened to because I find it hard to pin down any noticeable techniques as to how the sounds have been created. My first thoughts were live electronics; it could be via laptop, but it the sound quality seems different somehow. Or Brandal could be conducting and drawing his sounds from the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. This issue is minor though once the sounds draw you in. Texturally this is reminiscent of the early metallic clanging of Robert Hampson's "Main", but only slightly. Brandal takes the sounds to a place of his own. The first half is very scattered and chaotic, with no discernable patterns to be found. The focus is on the interplay of sounds. The nondescript nature of which forced me to simply enjoy them as they unfolded. Metallic clinkings, scratchings and abrasions ebbing and flowing, sliding off one another as if listening to some alien sea carrying a tiny boat. This vibe creates an unusual hypnotism between sound and listener. It is not until the album hits the halfway mark that a few notes of nylon guitar or piano is introduced into the mix. The chaos becomes ordered and the experience begins to take on more of a slightly musical nature. I urge you to track down this release. Brandal is a skilled soundsperson with some great tricks up his sleeve. 8/10 - Zac Keiller
(Dead Angel)If this were on any label other than this one, you'd call it dark ambient -- the nine tracks here are gritty but subdued excursions into drifting clouds of ephemeral sound over beds of minimalist noise, festooned with exotic electronic flourishes and spooky keyboard drones. Occasionally the keyboards become a bit more active, creeping out of the ambient territory and more into the realm of sparse prog-rock, and most of the soundscapes are imbedded with brief, unexpected snippets of jarring sound, but otherwise the flow of sound is gentle and dreamlike. It's a spare sound whose motion is mainly tidal in nature -- the sheets of ambient sound ebb and flow like tidal waves in the ocean as shimmering drones and truncated keyboard melodies play out slowly over the shape-shifting noise textures, with just enough gradually changing elements and attention to detail to keep it from growing stale and monotonous. It's a nice fusion of noise, drone, and electronica that rewards close listening, but functions equally well as background music. It's also supremely spooky, with a sound that would have perfect as the soundtrack to ALIEN during the comsic deep-space scenes. This is definitely one for the dark ambient enthusiasts. - RKF
(ADDreviews) Dreamy, soundscapish swirls that envelop you like a giant orange creamsicle. - Laze
(Vital Weekly) To start with the latter, Andreas Brandal is a member of Lupus Golem (see Vital Weekly 625), but we know him better from his CD release on Quasi Pop 'Drive Home With A Hammer' (Vital Weekly 532), but his history dates back for ages when he recorded with other people. Like on his Quasi Pop album the present feature is still working with the sampled sounds of orchestral music in all its variety. Ranging from pleasantly soft pondering to louder excursions, Brandal creates nine varied pieces of music. The softer side of Brandal's music prevails here and that's good to hear, as that's what he does best, I think. Full of tension, made with pleasure, with enough angular sounds to keep things fully interesting. Nice one. - Frans De Waard
(Chain DLK) This one gets my vote as one of the best works I've heard on Eh?/Publiceyesore records so far, and I see this artist has done many other releases beside having took care of the drawing of the front cover that reminded me so much some layout from mighty Ebullition records during its heydays. Differently from Downcast or Amber Inn, Andreas Brandal has probably nothing to share with hard core and his music even less, being on Eh? you may have guessed it's an experimental work, but though the whole catalogue of this cdr label is quite varied, this one is quite particular. We're talking about a deep drony-ambient work but don't expect all of the songs sound in the same way, as I've said beside the stylistical "trait d'union" linking all of the tracks sometimes becomes really personal like in the fourth track where you've this weird "bell/vibraphonic" sound that goes on slowly like a slug for the most of the song while you have some melodic-cathartic melody depicting a scenario on the background. Some strange dissonance colored thanks to some drones create an odd atmosphere which links most of the tracks. Be it I've been listening to it several times at the end of the day, but I think that's the proper time of the day in which you can appreciate the most such a release. Andreas Brandal is really minimal but the music he composed is really intense and sometimes desolated, I can even image it could help a movie reaching the climax right when the protagonist is lost in the depth of a forest. A nocturne release which doesn't mean dark but just nocturne. - Andrea Ferraris
(Aiding & Abetting) Brandal refers to the music within his pieces as sounds. That's about right. This exploration of the outer reaches of convention never quite sheds the bounds of earth--the melodies can be stunning--but it sure does dance along the edge. Let the sounds roll over you, and you'll find yourself transported to a better place. - Jon Worley
(The Chickenfish Speaks) Imagine a small orchestra trying to capture the feeling and ambiance of whale calls. Then you will come close to the soundscapes created by Andreas Brandal on this mesmerizing disc. - Grog Mutant
(Touching Extremes) A mesmerizing record - its composer unknown to yours truly - characterized by a multiform merging of electronic emissions, various percussions, regular instruments and objects, possibly improved by a minor degree of treated field recordings (not sure about that, though). Eerie astral moods nonetheless convey a somewhat sheltering feeling - can you spell protection? - with a few surprises scattered here and there. Throbbing low frequencies proliferate, the abstractness of the material ever present - but don't ask me for similarities, because I can't find any. All of a sudden, an acoustic guitar appears in "Sleep miracle", its arpeggio furnishing an otherwise nearly robotic segment with a bucolic stroke. Compositional sagacity is at work, everything sounding carefully chosen, weighed and assembled. At first one almost doesn't notice that the music is going, situating these sounds in the back of the mind while doing something else. As soon as focus is given, we're captured and positively charmed, the rest rightly fitting in the overall design: as I'm writing, the remote sound of the bell tower from the adjacent town - a distinctive occurrence in this area - is properly amalgamating, as the sun goes down, with a small candlelit wonder of a piece named "Abreg Ad Habra". "The mirror stage" is another gorgeous experience, based as it is on resonances of rubbed glass amidst overhanging counterpoints. There's some magic in this CD, what's needed is the right mental pattern. Very good things indeed. - Massimo Ricci
(Ampersand Etcetera) Eh?40 is a departure from the improvisational mood of the label, but then you come to expect that from anything related to Public Eyesore. Brandal is a Norwegian who has been working on various projects since the 80s and releasing solo-work for about a decade. He runs a label - Twilight Luggage - which has one of his albums plus collaborations and some other groups. More on them in the next post. Is This is not for you for you? When I first put this on I had been listening to The Tone Generation podcasts (mentioned here) They immediately came to mind - but this then goes beyond that. So here are some thoughts. The burning room with long slow tone melodies, crackles that move around, throbs and notes noises that slide in and out is a stately piece of concrete electronica. Ringing tones and gongs of the title track are lovely with muted crinkling and crunches. Soft tones form bookends to a rising ratchet and gentle voiceiness in The ghost opera. Acoustic guitar appears in Sleep miracle along with more tones soft and high gentle ones before a long scraping fade. A door opens at the start of Abreg ad habra taking us into an exploration of plucked notes (metal?wire?), a deep hum, billows that builds and releases, longer harmonica notes and strange crackles join in a fascinating extension. Scifi tones, drifting restrained radiowaves all Shine. Then an aleatoric ambience of The mirror stage full of gentle stuttering, high and deep tones, wind, drifting simple warmth and guitary shimmers. Concluding with Julien torma where loose cable skitters, a deep hum, sweet tones and guitar strums contrast harsher tones and clicks which emerge, sliding into harp-like reverb tones and crackles as the track ends. This is an excellent album - amongst the often improvised and lo-fi recordings of Eh? it provides another view of where music can go - and this one definitely is music and belies its title for the sort of people I imagine reading this blog. Some more has dropped in from the label in the last few days, so expect some more noisier stuff soon - and meanwhile get this. (And it's nice the see Eh? website get the full catalogue/review structure of Public Eyesore) - Jeremy Keens
(Auf Abwegen) Eine echte Überraschung und mit Abstand der beste Release, der auf Brian Days PE-Sublabel eh?!” bishger erschienen ist: This Is Not For You von Andreas Brandal. Der Kollege gehört zur typischen Spezies der Vielklöppler und tummelt sich in der Grauzone zwischen Doom-Electronics und Post-Metal. This Is Not For You ist eine Sammlung lang vibriender Töne, die manchmal nach verfremdeten Gitarren und dann wiederum nach Keyboards klingen. Brandal schafft es, eine Landschaft von bizarrer Schönheit entstehen zu lassen, in der zwar nichts wächst und gedeiht, die aber faszinierende Formationen hervorbringt. Eines seiner Projekte heißt Bergen 666…. - Zipo
