“Gode is a personal album. Its the album I have always wanted to make” says André Bratten. Made between 2012-2015 in Oslo, Bratten sites artists like Giacinto Scelsi, Arvo Pärt, Gescom/AE, Brian Eno and Norwegian compatriot Biosphere as inspiration. It will see release on November 13th via Smalltown Supersound.

Gode has a dual meaning in Norwegian. It’s a Middle English word that gave us the modern English word “goad” (meaning to provoke or annoy). On one hand, it literally means “cattle prod,” but it also came to mean “a right or privilege,” as the cattle prod came to symbolize the indentured labor of the Norwegian rural working class. The land owning aristocrats would exploit the people as if they were so much livestock.

Like a stark black and white film, the record is a meditation on the darker days of Norway’s
 past, before the country discovered its oil wealth. From 1900–1939 it was one of Europe’s poorest countries, beset by illness and starvation. Rural poor depended completely on their families and had more children to work the land. Only the privileged could afford to make art, and Bratten thinks of all the music and art from the poorest families that was lost. Gode is a hymn to those people.

He released his debut album “Be A Man You Ant” on the Full Pupp label in 2013 and quickly followed up with “Trommer & Bass” on Berlin’s Correspondant label. Bratten then signed to Smalltown Supersound, who in June 2015 released the 6-track EP “Math Ilium Ion.”

Gode is Bratten giving free rein to his imagination and further deepening his unique musical practice. His previous work was made with synthesizers, drum machines and computers, but this album is recorded through tape machines, layered with field recordings, heavily modified piano, string arrangements and even vocals (including Susanne Sundfør, amongst others).

Today, Bratten shares the song “Quiet Earth,” presented as a video showing an actual scan of his own brain. In a nod to his synesthetic process.

TRACKLISTING:

1. Intro
2. Cave
3. Quiet Earth
4. Philistine
5. Bivouac
6. Cascade of Events (feat. Susanne Sundfør)
7. Ins.
8. Gode
9. Space Between Left & Right
10. Iconography
11. Primordial Pit
12. Zero
13. Math Ilium Ion

ANDRÉ BRATTEN TOUR DATES:

Oct 9. – Berlin, DE @ Beitola At Ipse
Oct 16. – Stavanger, NO @ Electro Motives Concerthouse Special
Oct 17. – Amsterdam, NE @ Straf_Werk Ade Special at De Kromhouthal
Oct 30. – Paris, FR @ Pitchfork Festival Paris Afterparty by RBMA
Oct 31. – Bergen, NO @ Ekko Festival
Nov 28. – Caen, FR @ Boréales Festival At Le Cargo
Dec 4. – Oslo, NO @ Parkteateret
Dec 11. – Prague, CZ @ Public House At MeetFactory
Jan 15. – London, UK @ XOYO
Jan 22. – Lyon, FR @ Correspondant Showcase at Le Sucre
Jan 23. – Paris, FR @ Correspondant Showcase at Rex Club
Feb 6. – Amsterdam, NE @ Marktkantine