Brandt Brauer Frick Make You Real

For Brandt Brauer Frick, the percussion, strings and pianos that have long been the bedrock of Western music also serve as the common threads between the classical past and their techno present. This is so much the case, that Frick proves that those three elements are essentially all you need to make a record no matter what the genre. This vision of acoustic dance music springs to life through their live performances and their debut LP, You Make Me Real. You Make Me Real, is a masterpiece of minimalism that focuses on percussion of all kinds, squibbly stringy sounds, and the use of keys to get it's message across. An album of 4/4 club bangers this is not, but something far more subtle, subdued, and mysterious.

Playing like the soundtrack to the scariest of dreams, Frick comes up with a haunting collage of sounds that sound like found sounds mixed down into something far more horrifying. Never really building into something loud or obnoxious, You Make Me Real quietly snoops around your brain scaring it half to death with pulsating noises that may eventually consume it. While the record is nine tracks long, the record itself plays like one continuous trek through the dark recesses of Frick's mind. The minimal like nature of each of the songs on You Make Me Real contribute to this continually dark and scary atmosphere and really make the record fascinating.

You Make Me Real is a solid record of dark atmospherics, bad dreams, and basic beats that's held together with classical influences in tow. While this doesn't sound like classical music in any way shape or form, the influence of the genre is apparent throughout it's use of bleak soundscapes and dramatic arrangements. While Frick may consider this techno, I prefer to think of this record as an ambient record with the ability to move. Truth be told, there's not a thing to latch onto here like techno and if it weren't for the fact that You Make Me Real is so exhilaratingly frightening at times, it would fall flat on its face. Operating on the bare fundamentals of electronic music while embracing the atmospherics and ambiance of minimalism, Brandt Brauer Frick have done a good job of putting into musical form your next trip to the psychologist.