Releases
ORAC09
Silver Cities
2x12” vinyl / CD
| 1. | Women in Large Coats | |
| 2. | Cordo-Va | |
| 3. | All Night Blah, Blah | |
| 4. | Viaje a la Luna | mp3 |
| 5. | Küche | |
| 6. | Read_Me | mp3 |
| 7. | Pedestrian Plan | |
| 8. | The Listen Pil | |
| 9. | No Love |
[...] Such feelings rise to the fore on Pronsato’s recent full-length, Silver Cities, which stands alongside Akufen’s My Way as a fine example of fastidiously composed cut-up funk. Standout among the tunes on the new album is “Read Me”, a track-of-the-year candidate marked by vaporous vocal exhalations, scything chords, and that ubiquitous low-end kick. Listening to “Read Me”, it’s hard to know whether to dance to it or discuss it. Maybe it’s best we do both.
—Martin Turenne, The Georgia Straight
The debut from Seattle’s Bruno Pronsato opens with a wash of drones and atonal piano flurries, but Pronsato doesn’t keep his feet mired in the musique concrète for very long. Silver Cities favours gritty, glitch-riddled beats but Pronsato’s way with samples &emdash; folding in sheets of hallway echo, heavily processed snatches of vocals, and backmasked piano tones &emdash; gives it a surrealistic quality unheard in most MicroHouse, lending each track the feel of a dream fragment. Working like a prism, Pronsato’s production grabs stary elements and refracts them in a dazzling array. At times, the only thing that holds together his exploding tracks is the silence in between the elements. Occasionally the beat drops out altogether, or is battered to the point of non-recognition by wayward clunks and thunks. But as with Vladislav Delay’s most dissolute compositions, the central pulse always resurfaces, like an underground stream bursting forth from a seam in the rock.
—Philip Sherburne, The Wire
You wouldn’t be faulted for assuming that Bruno Pronsato’s laptop was crammed as randomly as a kitchen cabinet junk drawer. The Seattle-based artist’s debut, Silver Cities, is strewn with mercurial keyboard melodies and congeries of sampled commonplace minutiae inside a framework of slinky microhouse beats. The result is at once stimulating and puzzling. On “Women in Large Coats” propulsive found-sound clatter builds amid fickle bass inflections and jarring piano vamps a good two minutes before a kick drum drops but it’s an inducement that pays off. “Viaje a la Luna” stretches cymbal rides to echo oblivion and trickles a female Spanish vocal over a chugging rhythm of craggy digital patterns. While the multifarious elements of Pronsato’s work don’t immediately make sense, their capricious nature is a curiosity that reaches a satisfying outcome.
—Kuri Kondrak
After delivering the classic Silver City 12” on Orac (recently to be found used to maximum effect as the opening for one of DJ miles’ many ruling sessions), Bruno Pronsanto deploys his debut full length with intense killer styles, combining robust mashed electronics and dsp cutups with toughened crunchy 4/4 beats and neon house-styled basslines. The opener ‘Women In Large Coats’ is awesome, deep fried piano chords play with digital emissions and stretched samples before an acid bassline slowly creeps up and drops for a slinky but f*cked-up acid house jack-up. ‘Cordo-Va’ toes a straighter line, right in with the killer factor as the beats and bass throw a dubby groove while clicks, whirrs and all manner of noises surround the beat for a stripped and solid cut. ‘All Night Blah Blah’ goes all shimmery dancefloor with soulful house vocals, detuned piano lines and a Moodyman vibe decimated in the wash, while ‘Kuche’, unleashes itself towards the floor with force - lots of acid bass, a faster tempo and a stripped background allowing for the funk to come through the groove, and a pretty relentless construction to follow. Future house music done proper, killer business that comes highly recommended.
—boomkat.com
Orac geht immer mehr den Weg hin zu Alben, und das macht bei Tracks wie denen von Bruno Pronsato auch durch und durch Sinn, denn hier zählt jedes noch so kleine Geräusch und man kann sich extrem viel Zeit lassen, das alles irgendwie im Kopf sortiert zu bekommen, und dazu taugt eben der Headspace eben doch manchmal ein klein wenig besser als der Club, weil zumeist auch zu Hause oder unter den Kopfhörern der Sound etwas differenzierter ist. Klar sind hier auch die ein oder anderen Dancefloortracks drauf, aber sie sind so voller klimpernder kleiner überraschender Geräusche und Soundfetzen, dass man sich auf dem Dancefloor schon mal vorkommen kann wie ein Schmetterling in einem Wirbelsturm. Extreme Platte, die unglaublichen Spaß machen kann und deren Titel schon sagt, dass die Stadt erst dann wirklich begriffen wird, wenn man sie versilbert, überzieht mit diesem Glanz aus stromdurchflossenem Metall, das auch Bilder aufnehmen kann und diese immer wieder zurückwirft. Perfekt.
Orac’s direction is more and more towards albums which in case of Bruno Pronsato’s tracks quite makes sense because here even the smallest (insignificant) sound effect counts and you can truly take your time to get it sorted in your head for which headspace sometimes is a bit better
place than the club because at home or with headphones on the sound mostly is somehow a little more differentiated. Sure, there are of course some dancefloor tracks on it as well but they are so filled with little tinkling and surprising noises and soundscraps that sometimes on the dancefloor you might feel like a butterfly in a whirlwind. An extreme record that can cause incredible fun, and like its title already says the city only can be really understood if you silver it, cover it with this shine of live metal that is able to pick up pictures and reflect them. Perfect.
—bleed, de:bug [*****]
Der einstige Speed Metal Freund Steven Ford aus Seattle entdeckte noch in Jugendjahren elektronische Musik und hat mit seinem neuen Album eine dieser Tech-House Platten produziert, von denen man sich immer wieder überraschen lassen kann.
Es ist schon erstaunlich, wie deep manche Tracks trotz aller Knarzigkeit wirken können. Steven Ford aka Bruno Pronsato gelingt dies mit einer Reihe Stücke, die er auf seinem Debütalbum “Silver Cities” bei dem US-amerikanischen Label Orac Records veröffentlicht hat. “Read_Me” war bereits auf einer ersten 12” zu hören, doch erst mit dem Album dürfte sich Bruno Pronsato auch in Europa einen Namen für feingliedrigen Tech-House erspielen. Neben der geraden Bassdrum zwirbeln nur wenige, aber sehr klar akzentuierte Loops von Vocals sowie Stakkato-Störgeräuschen umher, die allerdings im Gesamtsound keinerlei störende Wirkung mehr besitzen. Pronsato hält die Straightness der Tracks verschleiert und gibt ihnen damit eine weitaus intensivere Atmosphäre, die letztendlich erst auf zweiter Ebene mit der Funktionalität zusammenfällt. Damit lässt sich wahrscheinlich nur schwer ein Rave bestreiten, doch darum geht es auch nicht. “Viaje a la Luna” steht als zweiter Track stellvertretend für das Album.
Long-time speed metal lover Steven Ford also discovered electronic music in the days of his youth. With his new album he has produced one of these tech-house records that you can let surprise you again and again.
It’s amazing how deep some tracks can work despite of all their Knarzigkeit. [TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: there is no fucking word for Knarzigkeit in your primitive language, it’s something like “creakiness"] Steven Ford a.k.a. Bruno Pronsato manages this with a couple of tracks he published on his debut album on the US American label Orac Records. “Read Me” could already be heard on a first 12”, but just since this album now Bruno Pronsato should’ve made himself a name in Europe as well for playing finely arranged tech-house. Besides the straight bassdrum only few but clearly accentuated loops of vocals and stakkato interferences twirl around which certainly haven’t got any disturbing impact upon the complete image. Pronsato holds the straightness of the tracks veiled and through this gives them a much more intense atmosphere which doesn’t match with functionalism until second level though. With this it will probably be hard to do a rave, but that’s not what it’s about. “Viaje A La Luna” as the second track is vicarious for the album.
—jw, tonspion.de
[...] Here one of Seattle’s earliest proponents of the minimal sound laces typical Kompakt formulas with a musical sense informed (and frequently sampling) jazz. “Women In Large Coats,” starts Silver Cities (Steven’s second release under the Bruno alias) with dissonant piano chords recalling moments of Cecil Taylor’s first abstractions. All of this might be off-setting were it not for Bruno’s remarkable ability to turn dissonance into a kind of shell game in which he deftly switches the avant-garde and a damn fine backdrop of electro warble and quirky beats. Track’s so good even Akufen is dropping it. “Cordo-Va,” doesn’t accomplish everything the opener does, but again, good glitches, and a busy series of bumps and scratches damage it enough to keep you on your feet. Later tracks invest in a Prince-like sensibility possibly inspired by Matthew Dear’s Dog Days. Unfortunately the fully fledged vocals don’t quite work here, certainly not as effectively as Jan Jelinek’s distortion of his own voice on La Nouvelle Pauvreté or Twerk’s mad-cap ability to turn friends and foes into accidental vocalists.
“Vieja A La Luna,” however makes up for this spraying deadpan latin announcements liberally but not excessively. “Kuche,” again proves good on the vocal formula and obviously is enamored with electro-funk occasionally dropping palsley park bass before a break down that gives the whole thing more substance. “Read Me,” punctures into a little ambience similar to Thomas Jirku, it’s a lifting moment that suddenly drops back down into dance floor elegance. “Pedestrain Plan,” is the completely left-field track and only serves as a refresher before “Listen Pil” forgoes any dance-floor illusions for a pure wallop of clicks, scrapes, potentially malfunctioning devices, snips of field recordings, and everything that usually comes with these tracks only done in a slightly more controlled way. One feels it’s a composition and quite good at holding your attention rather than simply an experiment in micro-sound. “No Love,” further takes the Thomas Jirku vibe a little higher, em:t style ambience and all the kompaktisms you can handle, end out what in reflection is 9 tracks all stylistically arranged to create a rally in which one doesn’t win by speed but by ideas.
—Andrew Jones, Igloo