Bracken We Know About The Need by: Tom Bradbury Thu:08-Feb-07 Label: Anticon. Year: 2007 WB rating 83 out of 100

When Gene Roddenberry created the Star Trek universe over 40 years ago, he brought to life a vision of a world where secular humanism had finally won the war with religion. Everything was clean, efficient and politically correct, and people felt confident of their position in the universe – almost smug. Bracken creates the soundtrack to a very different future on We Know About The Need – a world where church organs are manned by computer programs; where even though technology has surpassed our wildest dreams, humanity has returned to tribal simplicity and irrationality. Science has failed to satisfy the mystical yearnings of a confused populace, but there is no alternative that would afford them comfort. This is the flipside to Roddenberry’s vision, more similar to that of Stanley Kubrick’s in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where humanity finds itself under siege from its own creations, victim of its own hubris. This is the music that should have come after the immortal line: “My God, it’s full of stars.” We Know About The Need is the sound of a collective reawakening amongst a people who have realised that they are at the mercy of the elements as much as they have ever been.

A side project of Hood’s Chris Adams, Bracken’s music is futuristic, but not utopian; advanced, but highly tribal. He makes prodigious use of staccato rhythms, vocal drones, chants and mantras, which gives We Know About The Need a peculiar spiritual resonance. Combining ancient Celtic instrumentation with modern technology, Adams creates an aural aesthetic which conjures the image of a society that has reverted to old pagan traditions in the face of massive upheaval. On tracks such as ‘Heathens’, one can imagine humans dancing semi-naked amongst the machines to primitive beats synthesised by sophisticated technology, much like they did in the extremely random dance party scene in the second Matrix film. On ‘Fight or Flight’, they are groping for an answer they are not sure even exists. The soundscape is incredibly crowded, full of human synth choruses emitting groans of spiritual exhaustion, and fractured, searching sitar lines. Adams sings, “You’ve decided you’re right/Yeah, right …You try to get it/Get it/There is nothing.”

Bracken’s vision can most clearly be heard on the album closer, ‘Back on the Calder Line’. An eerie descending synth line creates a feeling of inevitable destruction and chaos, augmented by a menacing reverb-laden beat. It is beautifully apocalyptic, sounding like The Knife with literary ambitions: “We will sleep so sadly in our graves,” Adams sings wearily.

‘Evil Teeth’ sounds like a song that George Harrison would have made in the mid ‘60s if he had access to modern recording equipment, combining Indian instrumentation with hypnotic sci-fi blips. John Lennon wanted to create the sound of a thousand monks chanting on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. On this album Bracken has come very close – it is incredibly dense.

We Know About The Need is as retro psychedelic as it is ahead of its time. Yet there are major differences in intent. Lennon and Harrison were interested in the possibilities of technology and psychedelics for consciousness expansion and lifestyle improvement. Alongside them, post-scarcity sociologists and bohemian philosophers imagined a world where technology would remove the necessity to work for a living, and humanity could focus on leisure and profound spiritual quests for enlightenment. Now times are different. People worry if technology can save us from the damage we have inflicted on our planet. It is almost like Bracken has a vision of a possible future, of humanity on the brink of extinction, collectively trying to bury its head in the sand and hide from its own fate. This is one of the few albums where you can tell from the music alone that the artist is a philosopher.