Introduction
Artist: Bratenschneider
Title / Release Page: The Edge EP
Release Date: 2015 Sep 20
Genre: Techno
License: CC BY-NC-ND
Media: MP3 / WAV
Pricing: Free / Donation
Label: Digital Diamonds
Rating: ★★★★★★
After my last outing with a House / techno release, I thought this looked like a good choice. It has some keywords in it’s description that made me think it would be a good choice: psychedelic and minimal being key among them. Well, as it turns out, Bratenschneider’s The Edge EP is one of those releases that really doesn’t do it for me.
Bratenschneider’s The Edge EP
Now, let’s start off with the description of this release from the Digital Diamond’s website: “High-tech minimal with a psychedelic attitude!” Ummm, okay, I don’t know what a “psychedelic attitude” is. Psychedelia, to the best of my knowledge, was a style of rock music that was born of the time period of the 1960’s.
More recently we have seen / heard electronic music producers / DJ’s / artists who have integrated psychedelic elements into their music. Some of the artists I’ve reviewed from other EDM labels have really integrated some psychedelic elements into their work, and really made for an interesting hybrid.
But this is not the case with Bratenschneider’s The Edge EP. Instead what we have is a pretty basic techno release, with a few bits and bobbles splattered over the beats to try to add some flavor to it. Try to make it seem like something more than what it is. At best it’s somewhat annoying, and at worst is downright grotesque.
For example, “Freeway” is an annoying track. Spatter a few sounds that could be kind of like cars over a beat and pretend that adding a few sound affects to a minimal techno track makes it something more. Take a slowed down, slurred voice saying “is that guy blind or wasted” and layer it over a track (The Edge) and it’s supposed to be psychedelic? Hardly. More so, it’s almost insulting.
Conclusion
Don’t get me wrong, as far as a techno release, the beats are solid here, and mostly listenable. But the idea that this is some kind of fusion of minimal techno with psychedelic style is just not the case. It’s rather annoying to think of it that way, and in the case of a couple of these tracks it really an abomination to make such a claim.