Wear This World Out

The debut album from Cristian Vogel's (Super Collider) newly formed quartet, Night of the Brain, is a strange yet familiar collection of ten songs written and recorded in Barcelona. The sound combines electric guitar, drums and bass with computer music techniques and simple song structures. The lyrics and feelings in these songs at times resemble the nothingness of dream fragments, the forewarnings within old pulp-fiction, the temporal discomposure of the modern hangover. At other times, it's just a good listen, an album that shows all the promise of new sounds and new bands that are taking shape now as electronic musicians who have out-grown the banal and stagnant techno scene. The other band members include Merche Blasco (aka Burbuja), performing electronics and adding her delicate and peculiar vocal touch to Cristian's unsettling lead voice. Little Mike "Fuzz" Hermann on bass, is a veteran of the '80s Berlin hardcore scene, having played in bands such as Dbass 5. He is also into making underground techno records under the name Intercooler. The excellent drum-playing on this record is performed by Cristobal Massis, a young Chilean jazz drummer studying at the School of Superior Music in Barcelona.