I Did This to You (Gigantic Brain, They Did This To Me 2010)

With his DIY keyboard and photoshop ethic, Gigantic Brain has brought an innovative and well received sci-fi feel to what is quite an exclusive and conservative genre, his first release the  Invasion Discography earnt his shot at the title amongst the "frequently played" list among many a fan of the genre. With each following release, the fast relentless drum trigger happy wacko Grind has been slowly been superseded with a more ambient touch, which has overall given it a far more cosmos feel,yet reactions have been mixed and tend to lye at extremities with no one finding it average. And here before us free for all you homosapien's to enjoy is his latest episode;They Did This to Me.

Opening up with a synthesised 70s styled electric voice, the first track Heaven appears at first glance to be some electro-ambient traverse sound, only to have it  torn up with a metal build up, which exits at gracefully at its peak. The second track Father is certainly what I was looking forward to, starting in an old fashioned drum assault and its alien styled vocals the Grind dies down and serenades in, an ambient milieu .
Gigantic Brain sticks to this blueprint, offering a nice variation of Grinding moments, and a collection of atmospheric ones, with a strong use of volume control to show the contrast between the two. The drumming has been slowed down a bit, and the grind moments have been elongated to last longer than the traditional 5 second blast, however with the elongation Gigantic Brain  is able to input a more industrious and resolute sound.
As always the space feel to it is ever present, and is exemplified greater in this album than in any other release to date,  however his promise of "taking Grindcore to the Stars" is perhaps no longer applicable. The moments of Grindcore are too few and too far between, and neglecting that cut throat ferocity and bizarreness that made his name in the first place, one could say that perhaps the Grindcore moments have also become somewhat standardised. The song Birds has that boy bandish feel to it with its acoustic guitaring and emotional murmuring, and was a great disappointment to me as it seemed so incongruous, no universe feel what so ever aside from a small rare background alienish interjection, and the following and penultimate track was a disappointment also, and although the final track was good, it couldn't quite counter my embittered left to me after the previous two songs.
Despite a general negative nature of the article, I still have no regrets listening to They Did This to Me, the majority of it was delightful to listen to, although I would of preferred more Grinding madness to it. Overall I would say that he perhaps is a victim of his ultra DIY ethic, had he stuck to his amazing keyboard work, scary alien vocals and insane machine drum beats and even his encapsulating ambient feel, this release could of easily been on my top list, however I feel his experimentation especially with guitars and vocals has been a great detriment to the overall feel of the album. It perhaps would of been best left as E.P instead of an album, some tracks are of excellent quality, and others of questionable nature and had They Did This to Me been refined to the better ones, I am certain that it would of been another solid release to add to his name, yet I hear on the internet that this is to be his last release, and this saddens me seeing that his music is by far some of the most creative out there.

Myspace

Last FM

Read more >>

Trekkie Grind?(Gigantic Brain, World 2009)

Space and Science Fiction are topics that have been blurred in the every day hayday of media and science frenzy of the last and current centuries, so much so that we have become somewhat desensitised to it, and it stays very much in the periphery of our mundane lives. However the topic is one that if we payed a bit more attention to, will fill us with fascination and intrigue. One such artist to do so was Gigantic Brain, originating not from Area 51 but Virginia this innovator of music collides the realm of sci-fi into  a dark void we like to call music.
Starting off in the year of the discovery of Sedna  and the discovery of water on Mars (2004), Gigantic Brain have created some quasi-cybergrind which has brought a wave of originality in the Grindcore genre. In addition to its contribution to shifting the defining borders of the Genre, it has influenced Short-Lived Grinding legend Parlamentarisk Sodomi, to set up his own attempt at it: Psudoku although I doubt Psudoku captures the Universe theme as much as he intended.However Gigantic Brain certainly does, this one man and machine really lives up to his promise to take Grindcore to the Stars.

Those of you who have heard Gigantic Brains earlier stuff, know how well he encapsulates a Cyber Grind, with intense machine blast beats and that evil eeriness which has become his trademark. This album takes a more peaceful approach, I don't even know if this release falls under the stigmatised title of Grindcore, but whatever category you wish to place this release under will not negate the fact that this is one hell of a release. I see some the tracks as a computerised version of slow and calming classical music which features a constant atmospheric background that gives it that "Space" feel to it. Occasionally he breaks away from this formula and brings in a ferocious and short lived Grinding track that  are greatly similar to his previous tracks on prior releases. 17 tracks of ambient cybergrind totalling a total just short of 33 minutes. Unlike most Grindcore bands but similar to many ambient artists he uses the keyboards predominantly; slow but profound. The stylistic and atmospheric attributes of this album are by far unique, and it would seem that his experimentation has payed off, he still retains the outer space theme, but has opted instead of using a hard line aggressive approach to polarise this and take things the calmer route, and he has done so without sacrificing the space theme. Many tracks feature no vocals and use the emotive musicianship to give it predominantly the calming aura or the bellowing horrors of it. When vocals do appear they are greatly varied each track has a different alien so to speak belching, screaming or murmuring.

I am in bewilderment as to how you can really capture the essence of the universe into musical form, simultaneously I am in awe in the fact that Gigantic Brain have done so with such high quality not just on this release but every other release to date. With a combination of keyboards, electronic drums, computerised sounds, infrequent guitarist and estranged vocals, Gigantic Brain at no point falter in producing such an Amazing sound.
For the die-hard Grindcore fans, this may be seen as a bail out by Gigantic Brain by producing sissy music. I do not belong to this school of thought, this release does not lack in musicianship and takes a break often from its more peaceful approach to unleash a tornado of some of the heaviest and finest Grindcore, Gigantic Brain proves he can do melody alongside brutality and I believe this is what he wanted to encapsulate in this album. Perhaps World is a musical metaphor for what people will observe on our world, a companionship of peace and brutality.
Rating 92/100

Myspace

Last FM

End Note: I will be posting an Interview I did last week on here soon, In the process of removing the background music, so don't worry Salvage the Flesh I haven't forgotten or opted against putting it up, just trying to make it audio-able.

Read more >>