Brakence in The 8 Playlist: and his bedroom laptopper indie dream
From some unknown location about a year from now he started beeping into the internetās radar after a collab with Corbin Cary fromĀ SVNSET WAVES, an electronic music label from Amarillo, Texas. They developed a comfy, friendly/work bond that slowly drove him into making his first album:
“After I released my single imintoyou with Corbin Cary of SVNSET WAVES, he messaged me in December of last year asking if I wanted to release an EP with him. I was floored and incredibly excited. I wanted to make something relatively short, a brief look into my sound and what Iām about. Only a single from the EP ended up coming out on SVNSET WAVES (my music is a little too vocal heavy for the label) but Corbin has helped me so much to find an audience and I couldnāt be more thankful. I usually get inspiration song by song rather than for a whole project, but I tried to give hypnagogia a loose theme and structure.”
“I called the EP hypnagogia because of the projectās themes of love and anxiety, which I find myself thinking about the most when in that state”
The artwork of hypnagogia
“Corbin made the artwork – he was inspired by the title and gave me many pieces to pick from! Besides the artwork, itās me.”
Before this, Brakence had collaborated with other independent artists – Kodotsu, Bluegill, Sitka, Gonima – exploring a diversity of styles where we can perceive a gradual shift. But actually fit quite nicely with the rest of his growing track collection (currently a total of 17). As of now, his exposure is slowly rising as a very fortunate consequence of being related to SVNSET WAVES:
“Corbin shared “firstego” with Majestic Casual. Turns out they liked the track and posted it! After discovering the channel through the promo, I looked through other recent posts, found many that I love, and Iām honored to be included.”
“The post was super beneficial for me! It contributed to giving me a new following on Spotify and boosted my following on Soundcloud. So a big thanks to Majestic Casual.”
A factor in his slow crawl towards notoriety could be that heās still finding a signature sound, as much as his production skills strike us as fairly mature. When asked about the audience he addresses with his song, Brakence comments:
“Iād say (itās) more of a a monologue. But I think, or at least hope that people can relate to some of what Iām saying. I know there are others in love with the world that want to show it but are stifled by anxiety. Iām making this music to help myself get over that, and if I get to help others in the process, thatās awesome.”
When it comes to genres, Brakence ās music lands at a very standard place of the current electronica trends, a paradoxical blend which can be both overcharged with detail and a fairly stripped-down instrument section, where complexity emerges from heavily syncopated rhythms, audio effects like sample-and-hold envelopes, beat repeat and detune with a dash of extraneous elements like found footage samples.
Brakence and his vocals
His vocals provide the centerpiece of his compositions, ranging from post-dubstep to rap delivery, begging for comparisons to James Blake, that little collab between Mount Kimbie and King Krule and – as heād put it himself – Drake. These very readily-available elements tempts us to classify his work with all-too-popular misnomer of the experimental āfuturisticā. In this frame of mind we asked him how he thought the future of music will be:
“The internet is already giving independent artists with weird music an audience by bringing those who appreciate it together. And that trend will likely continue as long as technology advances. Itās going to make unconventional artistic decisions way more acceptable and explored, which is super exciting. The most popular music will probably continue to use the pop formula because of how weāre psychologically drawn to it. I think we get bored with the aesthetic though. In the short term, we may start seeing more pop artists embrace IDMās aesthetic for its fresh texture. I mean, maybe not, but I can see that happening.”
Pop music is probably one of the most flexible categories, whilst IDMās been around from the days of Aphex Twin, Autechre, and the likes. It all makes sense in the grander scheme of the internetās perpetual motion nostalgia factory and the natural autopoietic ways of every facet of human activity, so yeah, this young musician has his wits about him when it comes to the cartography of todayās music landscape.
As per our namesake, hereās a tiny playlist that heās shared with us with a bit of a foreword:
