Sindre Bjerga & Fabio Orsi - Brombron 28: Faded Brown And Gray [Korm Plastics - 2014]Korm Plastics imprint presents Brombron 28: Faded Brown And Gray by Sindre Bjerga & Fabio Orsi. Available in CD format, this album represents another entry in the Brombron series. Brombron is a project where 2 or more musicians become artists in residence in Extrapool, an arts initiative in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, with a full recording studio at their disposal. On this entry we have the pairing of Fabio Orsi from Southern Italy and Sindre Bjerga, hailing from Norway. On Faded Brown And Gray, Sindre Bjerga & Fabio Orsi deliver 5 untitled tracks of eerie synth work, chilling atmospherics, and field recording synthesis. Track 2 integrates creepy electronics and repetitive throbbing tones mixed, with what sounds like, a skateboard traversing pavement and percussive found sounds. Droning layers seem to reveal themselves one by one as intensity builds over this 12:32 piece, while some lo-fi guitar work carries us over the finish line. Track 3 unfolds with some minimal ambience intertwined with some electro acoustic action, before building into brighter instrumentation. Track 4 begins with a repetitive synth tone that sounds akin to the played notches of a güiro, before evolving into machinery sounds, other junk metal manipulations, voice samples, and random chirpings. It doesn’t evolve in a harsh way at all, but rather stays really subtle and focused. The final piece ends very similar to how track 2 transpired, namely dense atmospherics and eerie drone. It’s remarkable how clean and polished this album sounds. Many albums of this ilk tend to sound dirty (often intentionally) to further exemplify the dark atmosphere, however Faded Brown And Gray transpires in outstanding sonic clarity. I tend to prefer the dirtier sounding recordings, but the clean recording on this album serves it well. All in all, a fine pairing these 2 sound artists make. If drone/electroacoustic/eerie atmospheres is your bag, then by all means partake. If this disc is any indication, it might be well worth your time and effort to track down more entries in this series. Hal Harmon
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