Bracken / We Know About The Need

Anticon

We Know About the Need is the debut album from Bracken, the shrouded-in-mystery solo venture from Chris Adams (vocalist and co-sound designer behind Leeds, UK legends Hood). It's a blunt introduction. Bracken walks that rarely tread turf between the electronic and the organic, where complex arrangements sound free and easy and every sound finds its rightful place.  The head-nodding beat and aqueous guitar plucks of opener "Of Athroll Slains" sound like lost transmissions from Wu Tang Clan's 36 Chambers picked up on CB radio. Bloops, beeps, squelches of strings and heavy dub bass reign supreme with Adams' wonderfully wrecked, world-weary voice right at home in the mix.   Lead single "Heathens" opens with a breathy, ethereal voice before catching melody and bouncing down a hallway of deep dub bump. "Fight or Flight" is a gorgeous six-minute exercise in musique concrete that recalls both the organic chemistry of The Books and the spaciousness of Boards of Canada.    We Know About the Need is full of songs like this. The rolling keys of "Safe Safe Safe" anchor a chorus of stereo-scoping vocals, hollow tones mimic a monks choir on "Music for Adverts," and "Evil Teeth" is a minor masterwork meticulously crafted from a chaotic jumble of freewheeling drums, screeching strings, gnashing metallic teeth, insectoid droning and the cry of a single sustained cello. Elsewhere a combination of field recordings, piano, voice and clarinet mingle serenely ("Many Horses") and slow-moving beats, 808 bass thump and uncut guitar create the kind of heaviness that lingers for weeks on the epic closer "Back on the Calder Line."  Frequently We Know About the Need rockets into the unknown, at other times its heavy hands come to rest on something far too human and familiar. As such, it's a perfect addition to the Anticon oeuvre.  

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