Brame & Hamo are an Irish duo known for their distinctive sound purveying joy and nostalgia. They have released their work with big labels such as Heist, Drumpoet community and many others.
Next week on the 19th of February, their latest EP Club Orange is being released. The EP is a cohesive journey that starts from one point and flows naturally to the other. This is one of our favorite EPs from the duo; all powerful weapons in any temple of sound worship.
Evoking a feeling of the past isn’t easy. When people from our generation listen to the music made in the past, we often get a feeling of nostalgia, without having necessarily experienced or belonged to that time. Personally, I think that music is the sole stimulus that can give you the feeling of not only transporting you through time, but that your environment has also been physically transported. It can make you explore and taste the grass on the other side, greener as it might’ve been. Movies can give you an external view of an era, but never truly place you and your environment in it, denying you the genuine flavor that comes from experience.
Club Orange EP is made up of three tracks. The title track “Club Orange” embodies the grit found in house and techno; Roy Keane depicts the soul of disco and early American music culture, and “Space Dub” paints a hypnotically eerie and psychedelic picture. Each song uses a different approach, taking the listener through different states, all in a cohesive voyage.
The A1, “Roy Keane” is a vocal disco track that directs the listener towards a state of debauchery, to join the collective consciousness and to be the conductor of energy at a party. The name refers to a football player, alluding to the high energy of the song.
Many disco records produced in the past during the golden age of the genre lack the previously mentioned force and grit which technology today can provide. At the time, a lot of disco music was recorded by bands, meaning that there were instruments like the acoustic drums, which don't give the sound which our generation is conditioned to hear; a powerful and engineered drum kick such as the ones coming from electronic instrument. Roy Keane utilizes different methods of sampling; it includes beautiful old records, while still maintaining the force that modern sound engineering can provide.
On the dance floor, we can envision this track helping people embrace and celebrate the simple things in life; just as the main chorus suggests, “dance”.
The B1 “Space Dub” directs you more towards an inward journey through the realms of your brain. The pads and the vocal samples inject soul over a nasally hypnotic melody, playing a single note that creates a mental discomfort. If one is on the dance floor immersed in the sound, a track like this can make you contemplate life, taking you on the space odyssey that the title alludes to.
If these emotions that might have come up after listening to “Space Dub” are as obscure as the track, Club Orange can enable you to overcome and expel them. There is a certain force and strength created by the straight-up house beat and heavy bass line, which is sometimes needed by listeners who rely more on the low end frequency range to tickle their sensuality.
A feeling of happiness commences, as the hypnotic tension found in "Space Dub" begins to resolve. This track alludes to the process of finding that happiness, but not yet fully resolving the tension.
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