Brutter - Outta (2023) [Hi-Res]

Pure, reduced concrète dub grind by Norwegian siblings Christian & Fredrik Wallumrød aka Brutter on Susanna Wallumrød’s label - one for Mika Vainio, Joachim Nordwall, Lasse Marhaug or SM-LL fiends

Yep this one’s pushing the right buttons for that brand of Scandi brutalism that’s close to our hearts. To be honest we haven’t encountered the work of Brutter before, but we definitely recognise the sort of tekkerz on show from decades drawn to Pan Sonic and their nuclear fallout in the northerly latitudes. Here it appears they’ve augmented and somewhat alleviated the asceticism of earlier albums by incorporating auto-harp and lap steel strings that shiver and buzz in a way recalling Helge Sten/Deathprod’s application on his Harry Partch tribute, but perhaps a little less obtuse and groovy-not-groovy.

Working out of Oslo, Brutter are perhaps understandably not given to any one rhythmic tradition, but take elements of hip hop, dub, and industrial musicks and kern them to taste with loose license. We hear them weaving between those does in ‘Dance-un-Dance’ and the speaker-buckling bass drops of ‘Melodour’, before beginning to add in flinty melodic aspects to the matrix on the recoiling industro-dub ’Straight’ and duly easing up the sound with almost jazz inflections on ‘Inta Succulence’. There’s some proper ice cave-man dub knocks in ‘Meet me at the Chicken Bowl’, and near Wolf Eyes-meets-Pan Sonic-At-Kenji’s gaff levels of blues primitivism in ‘Twin Outta’, before they tie it off with satisfying balance of brutalism and ephemeral beauty in ‘Nachstück’.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Brutter - Dance un-dance (3:53)
1.02 - Brutter - Melodour (6:30)
1.03 - Brutter - Straight (4:04)
1.04 - Brutter - IInta Succulence (5:05)
1.05 - Brutter - Meet me at the Chicken Bowl (7:52)
1.06 - Brutter - Twin Outta (5:11)
1.07 - Brutter - Nachtstück (6:50)