Description
Bruit’s sound is a tectonic collision of raw noise and patient, cinematic structure: layers of metallic percussion, low-end rumbles and fractured melodic fragments that creep, accumulate and then converge. Balancing soaring melancholy and industrial grit with meticulous dynamics, they turn long-form pieces into physical architectures where silence, resonance and sudden force are equally important.
In this reissue of their staggering debut EP ‘Monolith’, Bruit give us the opportunity to rediscover their first ever release, the completely self-produced and recorded record that defined their direction and introduced their world-shattering sound. ‘Monolith’ is an epic portrayal at the centre of the human experience, the band’s use of melancholia, industrial textures reimagined through patient dynamics, sculpted resonances, and a singular attention to momentum gives listeners access deep and power terrains.
The opening piece, ‘Bloom’ is quintessential Bruit: an immersive journey of grinding percussion, layered field recordings, and low-frequency architecture that pushes and pulls the listener. Percussive phrasing invigorates, sirens wail, strings swoon, as over eight minutes the composition evolves through additive tension — metallic fragments assemble into percussive pillars, dissonant harmonics arc across cavernous spaces, and an inexorable pulse keeps the horizon shifting. ‘Bloom’ exhibits the band’s signature brutality refined by increased focus on internal motion and textural clarity in their unwavering march towards concrescence.
The EP’s second track ‘The Fall’ takes a contrasting approach. Quiet and atmospheric for the first half, ‘The Fall’ cultivates a hush of granular textures and attenuated drones, encouraging close, patient listening. Sparse elements appear like fossils in sediment — brittle clicks, ephemeral echoes and touches of intrigue. This restraint and power of negative space then, after a spoken word sample, descends into melodious chaos, surging outwards and culminating in Bruit’s signature ability to find ever higher peaks, to detonate and reimagine crescendos that push out further and further, transforming accumulated emotion into an overwhelming storm, eventually settling in post-destructive tranquillity.
‘Monolith’ is the first expression of Bruit’s exploration of material sound and human scale. Building on the dense palette of integrity and compositional mastery, Bruit interrogates what long-form composition can hold: memory, pressure, and a cinematic coalescence. Bruit’s sound captures the exorbitant nature of the times, the outrageousness of humanity at a moment in time that is grotesque in scale and overwhelming in scope.
And so, we leave you with an official statement from Bruit, themselves:
“Life may be elsewhere, at another rhythm, a different scale, and you have forgotten it. Your body hosts a microscopic and elusive world that dies and is reborn every second. It is swarming with particles that will be the cause of your life and your death. It will be your first vertigo. The bloom.
Then you look to the sky and realise that this inner world floats in a universe in which the human mind cannot comprehend borders and where you are no more significant than a grain of sand. Energy of unimaginable power has been developing for billions of years and it is also responsible for your life and death. It will be your second vertigo and with it you will fall.
So who are you? Between the infinitely small and the incredibly large. Is your little daily problem still meaningless? Sit down by the vestiges of the monolith erected by your ancestors and take the time to think. Ask new questions rather than repeating old answers.”
FOR FANS OF
Hans Zimmer * Nils Frahm * Godspeed You! Black Emperor * Balmorhea * Max Richter * Olafur Arnalds * A Silver Mount Zion * Boards Of Canada
