BIG|BRAVE - OST (Thrill Jockey, 2025)
It is truly impressive how BIG|BRAVE keep on improving and owning their sound. But what the trio, with guest contributions from sound engineer Seth Manchester and Melissa Guion (aka MJ Guider), bring to ‘OST’ is unparalleled. The idea behind ‘OST’ is to create the soundtrack for a yet-to-be-released film. While the visuals have yet to be conceived and shot, the five of them spent a week in the studio making music without any preconceived plans. Each was free to choose an instrument. The result is a playfulness that refreshes the seriousness that surrounds BIG|BRAVE. At its base is a stringed instrument made by Mat Ball (who is not only a guitarist but also an instrument maker) from old piano strings that were lying around in the hall of Robbin Wattie’s tattoo studio. This instrument, called ‘the instrument’, shimmers and thunders throughout the album. As always, BIG|BRAVE build slow and deep drones around which to experiment. This time without getting bogged down in those addictive high doses of noise. The sound remains surprisingly pure. No distortion, no overabundance of electric guitars or suffocating feedback, just pure resonance. Titles seem to add little, as the only thing that changes is the Roman numeral that follows ‘innominate Nº’. Voices are just sounds. On ‘innominate Nº v’, a sound scrapes and tears, like metal, like fingernails on a chalkboard, a worn-out cassette player trudging through one last play. Dissonant. Abstract. Uncanny and alienating. And yet captivating. Forty-five minutes long, in which tracks sometimes stand out because they are too short, or simply because they grab you by the throat. As haunting as Wattie’s humming on ‘innominate Nº vi’, which won’t let you go. The OST is addictive. Innominate Nº viii’ resonates. Another listen forces itself upon you and makes you wonder what BIG|BRAVE can do next. Absolutely stunning. Mind-blowing.
Released on Thrill Jockey,