Electronic duo Grandbrothers’ rich sound isn’t quite new age—but it’s on the first steps of a pilgrimage there. Grandbrothers use minimal, computer-controlled piano arrangements to chalk subtle elaborations into a blueprint that has brought success to the likes of Nils Frahm, Bonobo and The xx. And just like those bands, Grandbrothers’ music is unashamedly insubstantial, bolstering its calculated straightforwardness with exceptional mixing and mastering and an elegant purity.
Contrary to Frahm et al. in All the Unknown is its pastoral cosiness. One often gets the impression such “beautiful” minimal acts seek fluidity in the concrete structures of urban spaces; they try to make neon spill from its own glass tubes. Artists cling to the cool and the urbane, insincerely repurposing new age tropes for city-dwellers. Conversely it feels as though Grandbrothers are finding the concreteness in nature and—in a way which recent events have made feel vital—welcoming the outside in. The result is an album which, if asked where it lived, would more likely be a neighbour to XTC’s Skylarking than its immediate musical family—a suburbanite with a dog and herb garden.
While Grandbrothers are far more concerned with timbre than melody, it must be mentioned that they can stretch ideas beyond breaking points. Many of this album’s thirteen tracks follow a near-identical compositional formula and, given this singular approach, you can’t help but wonder if they were all necessary. It is difficult to justify all fifty-eight minutes of an album’s runtime when so many of them are spent underlining and re-underlining a single point. All the Unknown isn’t quite as rapturous on a macro scale as it is when you dive into all of its itty-bitty details.
There has been some attention given to structure. Tracks take turns to imperceptibly ratchet things up—and the second half of All the Unknown is more dark and grand than its first. ‘Black Frost’ would feel incongruous and displaced at the opening of the album, but it fits its place in the tracklist perfectly as an escalation of everything that came before. This precision and control is worth complimenting but may well be responsible for why the album feels a static and staid at times. If this is the case, the album is wonderfully subtle in a way I cannot bring myself to fully appreciate.
All the Unknown felt best when railing at the edges of its own box. ‘Auberge’ is noteworthy for being perhaps the album’s slowest-and-lowest track, and its diminished energy slightly breaks with formula in a way that’s effective and memorable. It’s smartly walloped in the album’s centre and feels like an incorporeal aside; a sabbatical in which we visit windy Himalayan peaks, replete with chimes and proud swells of synth. ‘Silver’ goes the other way, and accelerates things until they feel self-interrupting and wildly energised. The prepared piano actually feels prepared in this track—but not in a way I can put my finger on. These stretches into sublimity fulfil the rest of the album’s promise and—while the full hour doesn’t quite sustain their highs—they elevate All the Unknown beyond the rest of the crop.
All the Unknown is available for purchase and streaming here.
Words: Andrew O’Keefe