After setting
their house in order with the widely approved career retrospective When Silence Was Sound, the reunited,
reconfigured and reinvigorated Brainiac 5 return with Exploding Universe. This new offering shows the enthusiasm and
drive of those recordings have not been dimmed, and that the Brainiacs are still
developing in new directions. Horns have now been added and a wider range of
musical styles mined, yet this is still clearly very much a Brainiac 5 record,
brimming with energy and invention. As before, few areas are truly off limits
as they traverse their psych-punk blueprint through the neighbourhoods of funk,
reggae and jazz on what is their most adventurous, yet focused, recording yet.
Recorded at
Alchemy Studio in Wood Green, North London, Exploding
Universe features ten new songs performed by the Brainiacs’ nucleus of
Charlie Taylor, Duncan ‘Mad Dog’ Kerr and John ‘Woody’ Wood plus drummer
Wayne Worrell and Nick Onley on sax and flute, with contributions from Ethan
Landis (Hackney Brass Band) on trumpet and percussionist Phil Overhead. It was
lovingly mixed by their longtime engineer, Hawkwind’s Martin Griffin at his
Roche Studio on the edge of Dartmoor. The album also features a cameo from
founder member and renowned Cornish poet Bert Biscoe, alongside appearances
from the equally renowned Gertrude Stein and G I Gurdjieff.
Formed out of
the ashes of free festival favourites the Half Human Band (also featuring
Griffin), The Brainiac 5 made a name for themselves on the isolated yet
thriving mid-70s Cornish pub, club and festival scene. Praised by the NME for
their Mushy Doubt EP, the band made
the move to London to enjoy the fruits of a gig circuit enlivened by punk. Yet despite
sharing stages with The Soft Boys and The Barracudas and coming to the
attention of the likes of John Peel and Alex Chilton, they split before their
debut album World Inside could be
released. The album eventually saw the light of day in 1988 via Reckless
Records, also responsible for releases by such psych legends as Bevis Frond,
Black Sun Ensemble and Mu.
Fast forward to
2013 and the opportunity to reconvene the Brainiacs resulted in the Sun
Ra-inspired Space Is The Place, a
10-inch EP of new recordings on Bucketfull Of Brains magazine founder Nigel
Cross’s Shagrat label, garnering effusive reviews from the likes of The Wire
and Shindig!, with the following When
Silence Was Sound retrospective receiving similar praise from Mojo, Record
Collector, R2 and Vive Le Rock magazines.
The Brainiac 5
play a special all-day launch party at The Betsey Trotwood, London on Saturday
27 June with special guest Mark & The Clouds, Jowe Head and more.
The group’s music has a freshness and verve that
makes their recent reformation seem entirely justified. Prog Magazine
It’s like finding something you never knew you’d
lost. The Wire
The West Country’s answer to Television. Shindig!
Punk energy harnessed to a serious Ladbroke Grove
attitude, the result a wonderful cornucopia of sound. Terrascope
**** R2
Magazine
**** Record Collector
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