You ever check BandCamp.com for new bass music? Me neither, but today, after my food poisoning settled, I was desperate for a change of pace, a new routine, something different – easy on the stomach. While stumbling around BandCamp, I realized the search options changed or at least flew over my head. Searching by tags is the most straight forward method of finding music in your specific niche.
While searching the term “Neurohop”, a term coined by Kursa to describe the combination of neurofunk sound design over halftime or hip hop beats, I discovered “Bract Thought” by c r o u t o n..
Crouton, a salad, something easily digestible after a day of food poisoning. Sounds good. Well… sorta. Expecting contemporary neurohop funk or ‘Tipperesque’ glitches, I was fortunately mistaken. Instead, I found something grittier, rougher around the edges, dark – embracing the shadow. While the introduction, “Bract Thought”, sets the aura with mandolin plucks introjected over sludgy, halftime static; Crystalline washes onto shore with wet reverberations, crunchy-crisp bass lines and whiplashing intrusions, setting the stage for the real party starters, “Fiber Expanse” and “Triplicate”.
“Fiber Expanse” is your grandfather’s favorite copy of Beethoven falling into the hands of alien-AI during a non-voluntary abduction, prompting the invaders to translate the CD into the alien’s native tongue, for proper analysis. A glitched and gurgled asphyxiation. Thundering drum and bass beats over distorted barrages from another dimension. A mind melting meditation where I suddenly realize: “Those were no ordinary croutons.”
“Triplicate” is the result of your alien abductors discovering you’ve mistaken the cockpit as a “restroom” and refused their routine anal probe, suggested once a year by any intergalactic physician. Pissed, your alien captors make a one-eighty split back to Earth at bone burning speeds. A boot to the butt, and you’re teleported home, only on alien terms, cell by cell. Particle by particle.
Descending into halftime hell,
c r o u t o n. demonstrates why he’s secretly our favorite part of any salad. A salad of saturation and weaponized wubs. Crunchy, cosmic collisions rivaling the extra crunchy peanut butter in my kitchen.
“Optic Sludge” is another hiccuping, halftime Hercules. An ominous opera leftover from our alien visitors. Wonky and weird. If you enjoy hefty hip hop percussion, tense ambient sound design, and static-stuffed slappers to the likes of COPYCATT and FREQUENT, why would you skip “Bract Thought”?
How should I end my project, a producer may ask, halftime or DnB? “Flare” concludes, why not both? Capitalizing on a love for beats of all speeds, why not satisfy both sounds? The high intensity, chaotic atmosphere of drum and bass to the head nodding hits of halftime. “Bract Thought” proves why no salad, and no playlist is complete without a c r o u t o n. or two.
Seriously this project is awesome, and I’m glad Bandcamp threw the recommendation, hell yeah. Shouts out any victories for BandCamp. One of the only sites that isn’t extorting artists…yet.
Also check out the c r o u t o n. YouTube page for breakdowns, singles, mixes, and more!
THE BADBOOB 