Album Review: Gode by André Bratten

Since debuting in 2013 with his album Be a Man You Ant on Prins Thomas' Full Pupp label, Oslo-born electronic artist André Bratten has melded Scandinavian cosmic disco with fizzy tech-house reminiscent of Booka Shade or various Kompakt-signed artists. Months after the release of his Math Ilium Ion EP, featuring the Erol Alkan-approved groover "Trommer & Bass," Bratten returns with Gode, a sophomore album that ventures far away from the club, abandoning disco influences in favor of highly personal experimental techno and downtempo. Bratten still composes music with analog synthesizers and drum machines, but this album also utilizes field recordings, pianos, strings, tape manipulation, and vocals, combining influences such as contemporary classical, arctic drone, and IDM.

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Norway's Andre Bratten first came to our attention thanks to Tim Sweeney, who dropped the bass-quaking track 'Trommer Og Bass' early one Sunday morning at Fabric late last year. But his new album, a meditation on Norway's dark past, takes a more introspective approach that has as much in common with Röyksopp and early Aphex Twin as it does with Beats In Space. Royksopp collaborator Susanne Sundfor guests on the haunting, Angelo Badalementi-esque standout 'Cascade Of Events', while on songs such as 'Bivouac' and the glitchy, icy title track, Bratten's sound is somewhere in-between classic Trentemøller and BOC's campfire melodies.

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Some of Norway's best producers seem to compensate for the region's chilly climate by gravitating toward sunny sounds, from Todd Terje's escapist lounge-house to Prins Thomas and Lindstrøm's psychedelic nu-disco. This can't be said for 28-year-old producer André Bratten. Although he records in the same Oslo studio as Terje, Thomas, and Lindstrøm, Bratten's new album Gode is insular and experimental, from conception to execution.

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