Mothertape — Unexplained Mind Bruises

Kolobrzeg, Poland based Mothertape is a project who conjure up a subtle unbalancing mixture of micro beats, minimal moody-to-harmonic electronics, and often surreal field recordings. Seemingly it’s been active since around 2015, and Unexplained Mind Bruises is the projects second release- appearing in the form of a CD on Zoharum.

The release takes in seven tracks in all, and these have runtimes between five & seven minutes. As an album, it very much sits somewhere between pared-backed ambience, lo-fi electronica, sparse beat-caping, and cryptic/ unsettling field recording release. Each of the seven tracks have a fairly skeletal, moody & yet often textural busy structure to them, so they rather ebb, drift & knock around your listening space- never really becoming too intrusive or in-your-face, yet your attention is kept in place through-out, with the albums forty-two minutes runtime washing over you in fairly smooth manner.

I guess if I was looking for a comparison I’d say maybe a more abstract & surreal take on the kind of thing 12K put out- but with slightly more subtle ethnic percussive touches appearing here & there. Or possibly a blend of Raster- Noton’s more sparse beat-scape based releases, with the addition of smudged & blurred field recordings elements.

So if you're in the mood for something low-key & sonically subtle that blurs the lines between sparse electronica, ambience & subtle field recording structuring then I feel you get something out of Unexplained Mind Bruises. I look forward to seeing what the project do next, and hopefully, it will be a bit sooner than another three years- as the gap between this & their first release.