S55004 - Night of the Brain - Wear This World Out - Official Release Info and reviews

[CV]

1. Golden Shower Song
2. Ghosts
3. Viki the Tall
4. The Theme
5. Connecting Changes
6. Winter Wine
7. Dark Lady
8. The Battle of Hearts and Minds
9. Engine of Angels
10. Above and Beyond

Preview album in LastFM software



The debut album from Cristian Vogel's newly formed quartet, Night of the Brain, is a strange yet familiar collection of ten songs written and recorded in Barcelona. The sound combines electric guitar, drums and bass with computer music techniques and simple song structures.

The lyrics and feelings in these songs at times resemble the nothingness of dream fragments, the forewarnings within old pulp-fiction, the temporal discomposure of the modern hangover.

At other times, its just a good listen, an album that shows all the promise of new sounds and new bands that are taking shape now, as electronic musicians, like Cristian, out-grow the techno scene.

The other band members are Merche Blasco ( aka Burbuja ) performing electronics and adding her delicate and peculiar vocal touch to Cristian's unsettled lead voice. Little Mike 'Fuzz' Hermann , on bass, is a veteran of the 80's Berlin hardcore scene, having played in bands such as D Base 5. He is also into making underground techno records, under the name Intercooler. The excellent drum playing on this record is performed by Cristobal Massis, a young Chilean jazz drummer studying at the School of Superior Music in Barcelona.

The album is released alongside a special limited edition vinyl 10" , The Theme EP, featuring two early mixes from the album. The CD artwork features original paintings by Catalan artist, Rai Escale (The Carnivorous Eye), a rising star in the International art and illustration scene ( http://www.raiescale.info ), with original typography and layout design by No-Domain .

The band present the record to an international audience at this years Sonar festival, part of the Station 55 Records showcase.

Release Date: 4th June 2007
Worldwide distribution: KOMPAKT and partners

Available at:
http://www.finetunes.net
http://www.boomkat.com
http://www.kompakt-net.com
and many more...


UK Press/Online : Katie at Bang On PR

Booking Enquiries : Station 55 at No-Future.com

Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/nightofthebrain
LastFM page: http://www.last.fm/music/Night+of+the+Brain

The Theme videoclip directed by Enrique Giner de los Rios

[CV]

from SonicState:

Wear This World Out is the first album from Night Of The Brain fronted by Barcelona based Cristian Vogel.
Vogel has carved out a formidable reputation on the techno/experimental scene for remixes of Radiohead, Maximo Park and Thom Yorke and as one half of Super Collider alongside WARP Record’s Jamie Lidell.
The new album features a mix of real instrumentation and laptop electronica with catchy hooks and clever lyrics. Cristobal Massis’s drumming and bass licks from Mike ‘Fuzz’ Hermann add dynamic rock flavours and rhythms that pitch this offering alongside Death In Vegas, Underworld and Unkle’s new War Stories album as whipping up a slick and nicely executed rock/techno crossover vibe.

The album is released today on Vogel’s Station 55 label and track 4, the achingly catchy bass-heavy The Theme, is available as a free download below.

Sonic will be chatting with Cristian Vogel as part of their upcoming Sonar Festival coverage from Barcelona later in June.

[CV]

from musicomh.com

The brain, it is said, is our most powerful and most mysterious organ. No one really knows for sure how it works - it’s a complex thing made up of all mysterious bits and bobs - and so are Night of the Brain who offer 10 tracks of aural interest in this mysterious and moody album of dream fragments and more darker realms than implied by their B-movie style moniker.
Formed by Christian Vogel out of the stagnant techno scene, you’ll be forgiven for thinking NOTB are the latest conscripts to the Klaxons led nu-rave fad. One listen to this and you’ll be very surprised.

There are no traces of ironic rave homage, instead we have an avant garde album sounding more like Sonic Youth, Pixies and Radiohead with a dash of Hot Chip as garnish. This is more alternative-meets-jazz and there isn’t an ironically brandished glo-stick in sight.

The cheekily entitled Golden Shower Song kicks off the album and is one of the most accessible and straightforward songs. The follow up, Ghosts, is a slightly weaker track echoing Queens of the Stone Age’s Feelgood Hit Of The Summer with it’s constant cries of amphetamine glory. It’s aggression seems a little out of place on an album that is otherwise generally chilled and dream like.

The vocals on The Theme echo Frank Black and there’s more than a touch of Kim Deal about the bassline. It’s a superb track which pushes the multi layered experimentation without sacrificing the mood it’s trying to create. The other tracks are just as strong and the clearly enjoy pushing themselves to the limits.

Whilst there’s plenty of influences on show NOTB thankfully don’t let any particular ones dominate. Couple this with the fact that it was written and recorded in Barcelona and you’ll find that this does sound pleasingly different from what you’d expect. If Dali and Picasso had a band, they’d probably sound a lot like this.

This album is definitely a grower. I must confess I was slightly underwhelmed the first time around ,but a couple of listens have drawn me in. However, whilst there are some great moments of experimentation, there’s also a few duff moments too which could have done with smoothing out a little. There are a lot of subtle pleasures to be had with this album, but it’s fair to say that Wear This World Out leaves your brain suitably washed where it should have been scrambled.

[CV]

from playlouder.com

There's been a shift in focus in dance music recently. Perhaps disillusioned by the fact that today it's possible to string together a lengthy sample and some half-baked beats on a Mac in about half an hour, license it to Ministry Of Sound, and find yourself bathing in champagne with the Sunblock models and headlining at Pacha before you've had time to switch your computer off, a lot of the electronic scene's leading lights have decided to focus on "proper" albums made with "real" instruments. Sometimes, this subtle backlash against the scene's perceived stagnation works - see, for instance, Distance's rock drums and metal guitars or RJD2's recent Hall and Oates-styled ballads. Elsewhere, such as with Two Lone Swordsmen's baffling new goth-electro offcuts, it falls desperately short. Night Of The Brain - Cristian Vogel's Barcelona-based four-piece alt-rock band - aims high, then pitches itself headlong into the latter camp.

Vogel's credentials as a techno musician and his skill at appropriating varied musical styles were proven in the late Nineties with super_collider, his techno-soul collaboration with Jamie Lidell - fans of that project, in fact, may take heart from tracks on 'Wear This World Out' like 'Above And Beyond' and 'Winter Wine', both of which nail Vogel's rubbery beats to atmospheric effects and vocals. However, neither of these can compensate for the real "but why?" moments on this album - the absurd Carl Hancock Rux beat-poetry stylings of 'Connecting Changes', the Pixies-lite 'Viki The Tall', or the embarrassing Free Association ripoff 'Ghosts', to name but a few.

The album's main problem appears to be that it has aspirational aims, tries to be too dark, and goes too quickly. Vogel's varied set of homages - from math-rock and college grunge to goth and soul - jar constantly. Released ten years ago, this album may have found favour among a listening public entranced by David Holmes's weird soul noise, but today there are people making a similarly eclectic and musical attempt at electronica and actually getting it right. As a fan of Vogel, it hurts me a bit to admit this, but Wear This World Out has very few redeeming features indeed. Although, there's one thing we can say - he has a surprisingly nice voice. Every cloud, etc.

Matt O'Leary

Oh gee, thanks Matt. Only your second ever review for playlouder, the first being some Scandinavian folk-fusion album... ( getting 4 stars from you might I add )

Why was this guy even listening to our record?

Anyone that can call something 'absurd' in a negative way, is clearly no fun as a person. My conclusion.

[CV]

from http://jbreitling.blogspot.com/

Super Collider's Cristian Vogel has formed a new band called Night Of The Brain, and the quartet will release its 10-song debut Wear This World Out, written and recorded in Barcelona, Tuesday. The teaser MP3 "The Theme" is very strong, a dreamy tune driven by a thumping bass line and draped with various computer-crafted textures. "The Theme" succeeds by remaining true to a hard-to-name but unsettled mood for four-and-a-half minutes, even as bassist Mike Hermann takes a bit of an odd solo or as drummer Cristobal Massis begins more urgently beating his crash cymbal at the song's close. Check it out.

[CV]

from RoughTrade

formed by christian vogel out of the stagnant techno scene, you'll be forgiven for thinking notb are the latest conscripts to the klaxons led nu-rave fad. one listen to this and you'll be very surprised. there are no traces of ironic rave homage, instead we have an avant garde album sounding more like sonic youth, pixies and radiohead with a dash of hot chip as garnish. this is more alternative-meets-jazz and there isn't an ironically brandished glo-stick in sight. whilst there's plenty of influences on show notb thankfully don't let any particular ones dominate. couple this with the fact that it was written and recorded in barcelona and you'll find that this does sound pleasingly different from what you'd expect. if dali and picasso had a band, they'd probably sound a lot like this.

[CV]

from ThisIsFakeDIY

Rarely is a band's name so indicative of their sound. True to their title, Night Of The Brain's music unravels like a fragmented dream, with a storyline that flips through images like television channels, fusing the elements of real life and delusions of the mind until they are hardly distinguishable. The album of Cristian Vogel's newest creative outlet, 'Wear This World Out', spews a stream of semi-conscious rock doused in blurry sound clips to create a collection of translucent subtleties that have you wondering if you are still dreaming.

With a veil of hazy guitar riffs that gently washes over listeners, Night Of The Brain forms the simplistic backdrop for their nebulous canvas. Artfully embracing the bare essentials, Vogel uses uncomplicated arrangements to spotlight the specifics of individual songs, from the beat poet vocals of 'Connecting Changes' to the hallucinatory sound effects of running water, and even the eerie snippets of old political speeches in 'Ghosts'.

While theoretically it may seem a tad leftfield, Night Of The Brain pull off the pleasantly Twilight Zone feel in the majority of their songs, deftly layering illusory sound clips and the mild crashing of drums and electric guitars to make music of another dimension.

However, thinking outside the box has its drawbacks. While Night Of The Brain find their niche in playing with the subtle arrangements and progression of songs, the band occasionally loses the listener in their refined experimentalism. Towards the end of the album, a few longer tracks struggle to hold the listener's attention. As the simplistic repetition's initial allure grows thin after seven or eight minutes, slight shifts in the sound effects paradigm are hardly enough to salvage the damage of forced longevity.

On 'Wear This World Out', Night Of The Brain do dreamy indie rock with an array of results as wide as their computerised sounds. However, in today's cookie-cutter industry, they must be commended for taking artistic chances, as the overall result is a success with only a few foibles shadowing an otherwise commendable debut.

Erin Goss

Read an interview at ThisIsFakeDIY with NOTB:

http://www.thisisfakediy.co.uk/articles/6107.html

[CV]

from http://www.muuma.com

escrito por Alex Galindo
viernes, 08 de junio de 2007

Image'Wear This World Out’ es el álbum de debut de Night Of The Brain, el recién formado cuarteto liderado por Cristian Vogel. Este peso pesado de la escena techno regresa en su versión más salvaje y rockera con once sorprendentes canciones que sacan a relucir el nexo de unión entre el ya clásico trío de guitarra, bajo y batería y las técnicas compositivas de la electrónica.

Va a ser verdad que la vida da muchas vueltas. De lo contrario, ¿cómo explicar el giro que ha dado Vogel a su carrera musical? Quien fuera uno de los mayores valedores del techno desde mediados de los noventa, con trabajos tan recomendables como ‘Specific Momentific’ (Mille Plateaux / 96) o ‘All Music Has Come To An End’ (Tresor / 98) acaba de cambiar los platos, sintetizadores y mesas de mezclas por compañeros de carne y hueso e instrumentos que no requieren de una tecla para ponerse en modo ‘play’.

Acompañan a Cristian Vogel en Night of the Brain la navarra Merche Blasco (aka Burbuja) -al frente de todo el aparejo electrónico y prestando su voz en los coros-, el alemán Mike Hermann -figura de la escena hardcore berlinesa a mediados de los ochenta, hoy en día conocido en el mundillo del underground-techno bajo el nombre de Intercooler-, y el chileno experto en percusiones jazzísticas Cristobal Massis. Semejante consorcio de talentos da vida a un álbum heterogéneo, que lo mismo bebe de influencias indie que se atreve con sonidos más ‘avant-garde’, a menudo consecuencia de mezclar rock alternativo y composturas jazz.

Image
Los cerebros en acción

‘Wear This World Out’ (Station 55 Records / 07) es un disco de texturas. A pesar de no tropezar directamente con referencia o tributo alguno al pasado de Vogel como adalid de los ritmos bailables y la música techno, el debut de Night of the Brain se nutre de las técnicas de composición de la electrónica, que comparten protagonismo a partes iguales con una refrescante y generalizada actitud ‘garage-punk’, que lo recorre de principio a fin.

El álbum se abre con la energía de ‘Golden Shower Song’ y ‘Ghosts’, dos temas de marcado acento indie-rock (en la línea de The Pixies, Sonic Youth o Radiohead), para ir luego encaminándose, a partir de ‘Viki The Fall’, hacia espacios más apacibles de misterio y ensoñación. Lánguidas guitarras eléctricas, voces ligeramente distorsionadas y pequeños aportes electrónicos se funden en perfecta simbiosis con la batería de Cristobal, más jazzística, o las líneas de bajo funk-rock que toca el propio Vogel. Estilos e influencias se superponen creando texturas y dando pie a un disco audaz y vanguardista; aunque no por esto dejan de sonarnos familiares sus cimientos.

Night of the Brain estarán actuando el 14 de junio en Barcelona, dentro de los conciertos programados por el Sónar Festival.

[CV]

from DrownedInSound:

Night Of The Brain: Wear This World Out
Out: 04/06/2007
Label: Station 55
Some records are impossible to judge objectively outside of the context that they come cloaked in. The critical vacuum that some argue should exist is an idealised impossibility. It is the framing power of context and the juxtopositional relationships that sprawl between records and their creators that allows for criticism to exist. With no common reference or point of comparison it becomes difficult to posit the album in a place of communal understanding.

This is my convoluted and arseholic way of saying: Hey! I am going to compare this new Night Of The Brain record to lots of other records and that Wear This World Out cannot be considered independently of its creator, Cristian Vogel.

Vogel has ploughed a successful and diverse career as producer of techno, as half of innovative electronica duo SuperCollider alongside Jamie Liddell, and as a studio producer and remixer for Radiohead, Chicks On Speed and Maximo Park.

While this record fails to scale the dizzy heights of Liddell's sublime Multiply there is such a variety of styles and nagging sense of possibility ensconced within its confines that it demands being returned to. It hooks the listener with shorter opening tracks ‘Ghosts’, ‘Golden Shower Song’ and ‘Viki The Tall’ which all conform to a template that falls somewhere between a slightly woozy, slowed version of Q And Not U's energetic dance punk mixed with almost dream-like post-rock sensibilities before the pivotal ‘Connecting Charges’.

It is this track that most closely resembles Vogel's straight electronic work and, in this full-band context, also appears to be the album’s weakest cut, coming on like Tricky fronting a faceless track from a generic chill-out compilation. Falling as it does at the LP’s midpoint, ‘Connecting Charges’ marks a segue into a series of tracks, all around the seven-minute mark, that have more in common with the gentle, exploratory avant-rock of Gastr del Sol and The Sea and Cake, or even perhaps the O'Rourke-produced efforts of Wilco, which display a willingness to explore and nose around the limitations of the form while never quite straying into self indulgence. The intro and outro of ‘Winter Wine’, for example, toy with strange static noises more commonly found in records that appear on Harbinger Sound or No Fun than a techno imprint. The bass and drums are unsurprisingly fairly prominent throughout.

For a man of Vogel's background, it’s little surprise that the rhythm acts as an anchor from which the more exploratory sounds can fly throughout this LP. All in all, Wear This World Out offers an intriguing and enjoyable listen that benefits repeat visits.

James Knight

[CV]

from groove.de

Wear This World Out Night Of The Brain
AUTOR: cb
Cristian Vogel macht's jetzt auch trippy. Das Wort der Stunde. Der in Barcelona lebende Super_Collider, Super-Produzent und Super-Physiker (der kann's dir so richtig geben in Interviews) hat bei seiner neuen Band Night Of The Brain so gar nichts am Hut mit der Post-Post-After-Hour-Verstrahlung. Nein, dieses Quartett aus Barcelona nimmt Gesang, elektronische Layer, Bass-Autobahnen aus schnurgeraden Achteln, E-Gitarren, ein echtes Schlagzeug plus Echos und Delays. So entsteht ein Gruppenklang, der ganz ohne Vorsilben auskommt: Haschrebellen-Musik. Spröde Stimmen erzählen von neugierigen Blicken nach innen, wo die „Battle Of Hearts And Minds“ tobt. Neu!-Gitarren zerdehnen sich im gekrümmmten Raum-Sound von „Dark Lady“ zu Punkfunk-Beats. Der maschinelle Beat von „Connecting Changes“ schließlich glückt total als Verbeugung vor Jaki Liebezeit: Bassdrum, Snaredrum, fertig. Eher verschlossen als einladend wirkt diese Musik von Night Of The Brain, wie das Dokument einer Verschwörung. Doch, ja.

[CV]

NAIL ON THE HEAD from 'British Males blog

night of the brain - the theme (station 55)
Minute techno don Cristian Vogel used to make deadly records like this and introduced the world to Jamie Liddell via their Super_Collider hook-up. After self-exiling to Barcelona with loads of the other UK techno bods like Tobias Schmidt and Dave Tarrida, he's come back with Night Of The Brain - a proper, but importantly not shit, band. Lead single The Theme is fantastic - mixing kraut and garage rock with the kind of noir sensibility you only get from sitting in dark rehersal spaces avoiding the blinding Catalan sunshine. As a plus it's got a line about "my brain in someone else's body", which has to be a reference to Dr. Hfuhruhurr.

download: night of the brain - the theme.mp3 / station 55

[CV]

Filmore Mezcalito Holmes writes on Tiny Mix Tapes:

Having grown increasingly frustrated with a cold and stagnant techno scene, Cristian Vogel – whom you may remember as the man who provided the best Radiohead remix of all time in the form of “Remyxomatosis,” from the Com Lag EP – has joined forces with Kompakt’s ambient beauty Burbuja, ‘80s Berlin hardcore survivor Litte Mike “Fuzz” Herman, and a Chilean jazz student drummer who, by fate of sheer karma, just so happened to be studying his craft in their home base of Barcelona, all to kick out the mutha fuckin’ jams. Damned if Cristian doesn’t sound born to front a band.

Naturally, this band, the jewel of his creation, is an absolutely perfect fit for him. Vogel’s pointed, mood-setting vocals work the aural crevices of the atmospheric, angular post-rock pieces behind him, betwixt and between dirty Slacker field recordings, as though the man has been practicing his whole life for this one golden moment. To hear “Winter Wine” huddling around a warm center of a liquid funk bassline and static-effected drums, melding in and out with the forward and reversed sounds of broken glass, while chord patterns on a calmly recorded guitar back up the “taste of time” vocals note for note and mood for mood, is to know the very definition of art and, moreover, authentic creativity on a genius level.

The group’s collected experience at manipulating sounds and perfecting song construction makes this debut not only vastly interesting, but also unerringly polished without sacrificing the grunge-soul aesthetic they were going for and spectacularly achieved. Yes, it’s quite possible that one of the most passionate, invigorating, and artistically satisfying rock album of the year was produced by a bunch of techno freaks in Spain.

:)