I just ran across a great review of 1000 Suns in the Cassette Gods blog:

"I had my back to the blast, my fists shoved into my eyes. At the moment of detonation there was a flash. At that instant I was able to see straight through my hands."

Brutum Fulmen's first above-ground effort appeared in 2002 with the full-length "Blood of the Moon" CD and more recently the band appeared on RRRecords' "New England" 5 LP box set. It looks as if the band was on hiatus for a while, but thankfully they're back with this gem on Throne Heap and an interesting departure from the group's usual style.

A self-described "impressionist audio drama," "1000 Suns" resembles at first glance the kind of soundtrack which might have been played at Halloween parties a few decades ago, or the audio from a 1940s public safety announcement. Reading the list of "instruments" present on this release almost makes it sound like a regular special effects record: "rusty music box, spring night creatures, breaking lake ice, 'fiddle trees' rubbing," etc. I'm definitely missing that volume in the library, if anyone finds it. But as the grand tradition of tape manipulating cut-and-pasters has continuously shown (and BF isn't exactly a small fish in this area), how one ties these elements together makes all the difference. Brutum Fulmen's sound is as far from kitschy and random "weird for weirdness' sake" as you can get.

Rather, "1000 Suns" is an intriguing construction of voiceovers, warm minimal tones and obscure sound sources that weaves a narrative of an ominous and paranoid reality. The binding element is a chain of World War II era eyewitness reports of nuclear testing, read by a monotone parade of scientists and soldiers. Most of these accounts are bizarrely horrific, like the quote above. Once these voices begin reporting, accompanied by deep rumbling and subliminally jarring creaks and moans, your attention stays captive until the side is over.

What makes "1000 Suns" so haunting is its power in mirroring the spoken word with an emotional response in sound. When the speech is purely scientific, deep oscillations erupt like plumes of smoke from an industrial laboratory. During another segment describing parties being held to watch a rainbow-like nuclear aurora, the music takes cold and melancholy beauty. Whereas others might have interpreted this subject matter with blatant violence, Brutum Fulmen employs suggestion and subtlety.

The second side of the release offers another methodology of construction, including about fifteen different types of tape degradation involving the original recording on side A. The contrasts are interesting, and it easily holds its own against similar examples of cassette abuse in this genre. But regardless of the insanely complex tape destruction it doesn't quite hold the attention in the same way the first version excels.

I've found myself returning to side A about fifteen times now, and although it' s one of the weirdest (maybe uncharacteristic?) Throne Heap releases it's certainly one of the finest and accomplished. The case includes a sweet black silkscreen on brown craft paper that works swell with the "goverment issued" theme. I'm just sorry that it took me so long to write about, and I sincerely hope this one stays in print for a while.

RECOMMENDED!

Yay, the first review of the new Brutum Fulmen release 1000 Suns is in. This from Vital Weekly #599:

BRUTUM FULMEN - 1000 SUNS (cassette by Throne Heap) For all I know Brutum Fulmen were history. I didn't hear from them in quite some time, which was a great pity as from the few sparse releases I heard from them, I had them down in my little book as one of the interesting noise bands. Good to see them around, even when it's a cassette.

They use a whole bunch of sound sources, including voices, feedback, 'readings of eye witness accounts of atomic tests' and something that is called the 'corrugaphone', among lots of other things, but as interesting is the list of tape processes used here, such as stretching, wrinkling, writing on tape, breaking cassette shell, biting, rubbing, scraping, abusing deck while recording and then I haven't even summed up half of it.

Although the cover 'seem' (!) to list various titles for the pieces, I am not sure if we are dealing here with one, two or more pieces, but what is captured here is great. That is: if perfection isn't your middle name, or, if you are as old as I am, and still cherish old cassettes and what ever imperfections that had. Brutum Fulmen use their lo-fi techniques to a great end, and still belong to the best that noise has to offer. Not for their sheer volume (by which noise sometimes is wrongly associated), but by using all sort of unconventional techniques and sounds to create something. Wish I had this on CDR, so I could more easily play though. (FdW)

I just ran across a nice analysis of Flesh of the Moon from a few months back over at Smooth Assailing:

noise fun fact #2: brutum fulmen is latin for (essentially) an empty threat. impress your friends/get punched for being pretentious, choose your own adventure! now, the trite facts: brutum fulmen, operating out of connecticut, is mainly the outlet for jeff wrench's experimental work. it seems like the brutum fulmen live experience expands to accommodate tape manipulator ken pfeifer (pictured standing up). jeff's had a couple of discs released by shiflet's gameboy imprint, and bf also occupied a side on rrrecord's new england 5 lp box set, which i need to buy at some point.

i loved this little bit of information about jeff from brutum fulmen's bio: "i played the saxaphone (sic) for a few years in grade school, but i can no longer read the little bit of music i could at that time, could never keep a beat, can't sing on key, and am probably tone deaf. i have no more than the most rudimentary understanding of music theory. none of this has deterred me from wanting to and attempting to make music." gives a bit of hope to the rest of us, eh?

while the above passage may make it seem like brutum's approach to music has all the delicacy of a blind giant, clearly he's selling himself short. there is a deliberate calculation to what's going on with flesh of the moon. jeff (pictured kneeling) likens what he's doing to musique concrète, and i'm not going to argue with him, the disc is an amalgamation of field recordings, processed found sounds, object manipulation as well as source sounds provided by others.

the overall tone of flesh of the moon is oppressively dark. opener lake of sleep is full of eerie ambiance. now, i don't think that jeff's holed up somewhere muttering "i'm the prince of fucking darkness", but the result of his work comes through as xenakis as influenced by the necronomicon. spooky stuff. haunted space continues with the theme, though, this time as the title would indicate, there's more of a celestial coldness at its core. my favorite moment is the swell of noise which appears to be rising towards a grand crescendo until it abruptly cuts out and goes back to gravity-less ambiance. pickle mutation is full of outstanding, jarring, noises. the panning of the creaky door hinges is utter brilliance. pipe this one through your house on halloween and guarantee that no one rings your door bell.

flesh of the moon isn't all minimal, sinister sounding electronics. spore, which uses a severely scratched tore honoré bøe record as a sound source is one of the best pieces on here. great analog crackle amongst god knows what, but after a couple of minutes when the background music comes into focus, this is when the track really shines. for all the talk that jeff did about well, not being very musically-aware, in the traditional sense, this is his contradictory statement. despite the minimalism of it, it's actually quite musical and manages to be memorable. mourn is another keeper. it starts off with some good droning noise but soon there's some warmer tones poured over the top of that. not only are the sounds nicely juxtaposed, they also show wrench at his most optimistic sounding. it serves as a pleasing reprieve before the fog-filled lake of dreams brings us to our end. once again, with this track he adds a playful contrast to it, near the end. the placement of it is a bit curious, as it's not at the end, not during the middle, and it only sticks around for a minute or so before being subdued by the darker elements. perhaps jeff at his most pessimistic?

now this is something that i think is deserving of the word unsettling. sure, i can definitely find you plenty of albums that are darker and more disturbing than this one, but all i'm saying is that as far as concrète goes, i doubt that you'd throw this on as background music while you were reading a book or taking a nap. unless it's a dirt nap. great stuff, though.

1000 Suns

I have finally finished work on a new Brutum Fulmen release, 1000 Suns. This tape (previously titled "Starfish Prime"), will be released in a limited edition by Throne Heap.

You might say it's an audio drama because of the spoken parts, though it is on the impressionistic side and not a straight narrative. In any case, this is a bit different for Brutum Fulmen. It is about atomic testing and the human witnesses/guinea pigs involved.

The tracks are:

• TEOTW
• witness
• thor
• starfish prime
• EMP
• radiance
• coda

It is 22 minutes long. Each side of the tape has the same 22 minute program, however on one side, the recording was first subjected to all manner of abuse while in cassette format. I stretched, wrinkled, chewed, wrote on, broke, scraped, folded, and otherwise damaged the tape while recording it over and over back and forth between two cassettes for many generations.

I recently headed to NH for a long weekend at the beach with the family, but I couldn't resist stopping by RRRecords on the way there. Picked up a few Pure CDs (sadly now apparently done as CDRs), a few recycled cassettes, and a few zines including two issues of Idwal Fisher.

In issue 5 of Idwal Fisher I was happy to find a review of the RRRecords New England box set which highlighted the Brutum Fulmen LP side:

Brutum Fulmen go for the Column One dollar and come up trumps with some great needle fluff, low end rumbles. Rattling milk bottles and a dying robot that bursts into flames fill me with an urge for more.

Find your way to the full review on the Brutum Fulmen site. And we still have a handful of these boxes for sale at $40.

Surfing the web, I just found 3 compilations in which I took part, but never received a copy. Two of the labels have promised to send me copies... the other I wasn't able to track down. If you care, check the Brutum Fulmen discography for: 4 Sides a Circle (AMK 4xCD3), Sicktron (Black Arts C90), and Entartete Musik (Entartete 4xC90).

While avoiding recording anything, I was wasting time surfing the web when I came across a program for creating a simple "choose your own adventure" game. Since I was into these (and D&D) as a kid, I wrote an adventure over a weekend.

Play my adventure online:
The Shoemaker's Apprentice

Unfortunately, you MUST USE MS INTERNET EXPLORER or it won't work.

If you want to try your hand at making adventures yourself, see:
Quest Markup Language

I have finally started getting somewhere with recording again. I am currently thinking about and recording material for three different projects:

• "Starfish Prime" - a short cassette (22min?) to be released in a limited edition (40?) with hand pressed or screened artwork. The topic for this short album is the atom bomb.
• A split CDR - still working on who the split will be with. Album will be with professionally duplicated artwork & disc, probably in an edition of 100. Some or all of the Brutum Fulmen half will be based on ice and winter sounds.
• A non-Brutum Fulmen collaboration with Ken (from prog band Zen Carnival). This project will explore some more musical material than normally considered by Brutum Fulmen.

It has been far too long since I have updated this web site, but unfortunately it does reflect my Brutum Fulmen recording activity. My hours at work have gotten longer and longer, and whatever free time I've had, I've been spending with my family. However, I have just quit my job and started a new one. That's always a nice feeling: quitting your job (at least when it's on your own terms I guess). So my outlook has brightened, and I am hoping to put some energy back into music. Ken and I are discussing ideas for a release involving our destroyed cassette live setup. Like our usual live process, this would be more of an improv thing instead of the painstaking, endless approach I normally use for my recordings. I am also planning to revamp the web site. Get rid of the frames. Trying to decide whether to continue hand coding the thing or try one of these WYSIWYG editors.

Just submitted a noise track "Arm the Children" to a compilation tape from Black Arts in Finland. Sound sources are screams, a 911 tape (emergency response phone system), tv talk show announcer, and gun sound effects. Piece is about young kids playing with guns, originally recorded in 1998.

I'm also beginning work for two CD compilations, for Banned Productions and APOP.