The Ebertbrothers - Susten Pass Mp3

Review by vitalweekly.net

http://www.vitalweekly.net/819.html

Not surprisingly, The Ebertbrothers is a collaboration between two brothers carrying the second name being Ebert. Axel and Michael Ebert resides in Berlin, having collaborated since 2006, in the first place working with video art and then later with more focus on a combination between visual and sound performances. A number of self-released live recordings plus one full-length and an EP is the result of the sound explorations up until this present album released on German label Mindwaves Music. The cover of “Susten pass” shows a circus artist standing on top of a strange creature looking like a mixture between an elephant and a sea lion. The circus culture associates with something nostalgic from the childhood. With the strange creature added to the cover, the aesthetical front picture gives a good sign of what to expect from the inside of “Susten pass”. The music from the two brothers is an interesting combination of modern contemporary electronics and sounds from earlier sound cultures. Ambient textures have been added complex idm-based rhythm structures in the main part of the works of the album, giving an excellent chill out atmosphere with quite some compositional edge. There is a pleasant cinematic feel on the album that also uses sounds, reminiscent of an earlier era of electronic music absorbed into the sounds of the contemporary scene. A very interesting and catchy experimental album from The Ebertbrothers.

Review by cyclicdefrost.com

http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/blog/2011/11/the-ebertbrothers-–-susten-pass-mindwaves-music/

Berlin-based visual artist / composer duo The Ebertbrothers first started collaborating back in 2006, and in the ensuing years they’ve continued to refine their combination of visual and sound performances, with several download-only self released live recordings already under their belts. This debut album ‘Susten Pass’ represents The Ebertbrothers’ first physical release, with the 19 tracks collected here being inspired by a year spent playing live gigs throughout Europe during 2010. It’s also a collection that immediately reveals the duo’s evocative, cinematic bent from the very outset, with the predominant mood being sweeping ambience and dark, broken post-IDM electronics along the lines of Bitcrush and Undermathic.

Opening track ‘Cave Diving Tonight’ certainly lives up to its subterranean title, sending a complex web of ‘Bucephalus Bouncing Ball’-style corkscrewing rhythms spinning and ricocheting against a serene backdrop of deep sub-bass tones, gaseous ambient textures and smooth, almost soulful synth pads, before ‘Risc Assembler’ injects more of a crisp rhythmic snap, sending vocal fragments darting and rippling against an eerie backdrop of rigid electro rhythms and squelching analogue bass tones, in an offering that leans far closer to the likes of Ceephax or Luke Vibert. Elsewhere, ‘Feature Film’ sees the darkness being turned back up a few notches as eerie dubbed-out tones growl and reverberate alongside dry, clicking rhythms and brooding bass synths, the beats suddenly reversing mid-stride before exploding forth into a chaotic fusillade of breakbeats over layers of glacial synths, while ‘Commode’ sees rhythmic bursts of distortion pulsing against glittering, delicate electronics and phased synths that almost sound like vintage organ tones at points. While at 19 tracks over 76 minutes there’s the occasional sense that things could have been trimmed down here slightly, on the whole ‘Susten Pass’ is an impressive collection of darkly cinematic electronics that’s well worth your time.

Chris Downton

Review by igloomag.com

http://igloomag.com/reviews/ebertbrothers-susten-pass-mindwaves-music

Ebertbrothers specialise in music preconceived for visual performances. Starting out as traffickers in video art, Berlin-based bros Axel and Michael have now shifted focus to sound-and-vision, their music being derived from audio-visual live performances. The duo deal in soundscapes “that shift between noise, melancholy, mangled beats and wide spaces,” accompanied by constantly developing abstract visuals. With several self-released live recordings, an album, and an EP behind them, 2010 appears to have been spent on European promulgation, and a series of performances (some captured here) that seem to have substantially extended their sonic palette.

Susten Pass is a first release that floats free from visual support, evidencing a broad range of textures and architectures; serpentine synths coil and uncoil around rhythmic skitter and sampledelic inserts in a sound that blends studio micro-edits with drawn-from-live structures. Opening salvoes (“Cave Diving Tonight,”"Risc Assembler”) locate us not far from mid 90s-early 00s vintage IDM – think Autechre, or rather an update of a distillate of various Warped, Skammed and Rephlexed dressed in some of AE’s colours; but it’s not that simple, as the first substantial chunk of the album then proceeds unpredictably, with a sequence bounded by beatless drift (“Chrono”) and ill synthetic ambience (“Commode”) that goes from the Funckarma/Quench style tech-funk of “Subborn Transmission”) to the darkside grind-hop of “Feature Film” and “Black String” (both of which would sit comfily on Tympanik Audio or Hymen), taking in the queasy lounge-glitch vignette of “Steffi” on the way. The final sequence of tracks follows a similarly variegated and mercurial route through the stylings mentioned earlier, ending on a high with the shimmer and fade of “Susten Pass” and “Maitre du Village,” all velvet and skitter, suggestive of further Funcken around.

The trainspotting tendency within the reviewer’s armoury duly indulged, it seems only fair to stress that Ebertbothers’ influences and derivations do not vitiate. Susten Pass offers considerable diversion, is artfully designed and well sequenced into album flow. Moreover, it’s a work that, while far from seeking to ingratiate, is somehow imbued with an ineffable substance that’s oddly intoxicating.

Review from Headphone Commute

http://reviews.headphonecommute.com/2011/08/06/sound-bytes-gagarin-aria-rostami-and-the-ebertbrothers/

Hitting my ears from the curious depths of the intarwebs, is an album from a brand new voice – The Ebertbrothers. Previously unheard artists are tough to categorize – they usually enter our libraries through a filter of established labels, willing to invest their hard-earned cash into a physical copy. And what about small independent labels that only have a few releases behind their belt? Such is the case with Susten Pass – a first release and signing of the Berlin based brothers, Axel and Michael Ebert, onto a German Mindwaves Music label. Deriving their music from audio/visual live performances, the duo create soundscapes “that shift between noise, melancholy, mangled beats and wide spaces,” accompanied by constantly developing abstract visuals. But it is the music that draws my attention in this particular release. Sparse, glitchy, and rhythmic percussion weaves around the ever twisting synth lines, triggered rhythms, and chopped up samples. Shoving their foot into the passage of experimental IDM genre, the brothers show off their daring side, when approaching uncharted territories of abstract sound. Interleaved with short vignettes, the nineteen tracks challenge even the ears accustomed to onslaught of Autechre. Begging to be picked up by Skam, Rephlex, or even Warp, the seemingly random synthesis easily lands in the camp of intelligent music. Check out the videos (and the provided soundtrack) on The Ebertbrothers site, one of which I took the liberty of embedding here for your enjoyment. Perfect for a sluggish mind.