“The Bran Flakes are my favorite sonic scavengers. Save-the-planet fanatics owe them a debt of gratitude for their imaginative recycling of petroleum-based audio storage media.” - Irwin Chusid, WFMUThe Bran Flakes are back! Six years since their last full release, Otis Fodder and Mildred Pitt are returning with the thrillingly fun I Have Hands on Illegal Art (Girl Talk, Steinski). The duo of audio-collage cut-ups will tour the U.S. this summer and in preparation have begun taking song requests via its MySpace page (LINK). See more about The Bran Flakes truly wild live shows below.
The Bran Flakes have posted the first video from I Have Hands for the song “What It’s All About” on their website HERE and on YouTube HERE. Legendary and groundbreaking radio station WFMU recently posted thoughts about the video. Read about it HERE.
Leading up to the release of I Have Hands on February 24th, 2009, the Illegal Art label will launch a new website that more fully employs the “pay what you want” system they embraced with Girl Talk’s Feed The Animals. Back catalog along with The Bran Flakes new album will similarly be have a flexible price tag for a high quality download.
Formed in 1992 amidst tape and zine trading scenes, The Bran Flakes already have seven releases of zany mashups and poppy audio collages that are more likely to cop a riff from Evel Knievel than anything on the current radio dial. Call them the cover boys of Cool and Strange Music or simply misfits with giant paper-mâché heads, these boys have amassed a cult following for their child-like concoctions that evoke flashbacks of a sugar-induced high whilst watching Sesame Street.
For their cabaret-induced live performances The Bran Flakes bring in Susan DeLint, Th’G’Rd’N’R, Clam Bam The Talking Robot, a dancing chicken and gorilla, and audience members who wear big foam hands that they can take home after the show. Shows include animated videos, marching bands, piñatas, confetti cannons, and whatever else their imagination dreams up. They have shared the bill with Jack Dangers (of Meat Beat Manifesto), The Evolution Control Committee, Lydia Lunch, Steve Fisk, R. Stevie Moore, Puyo Puyo, and others.
Besides their devotion to The Bran Flakes, Otis and Mildred have a litany of other projects that include collaborations with Negativland, the Ubu.com-hosted 365 Days Project, their own Happi Tyme label, and the prolific Comfort Stand Recordings label that released tracks from artists such as Dan Deacon and the Russian electronic-surf band Messer Chups. Mildred is also a member of the experimental-dub band Library Science and provides musical background for vocalist Spacecake from Twizzle.
The duo has also churned out Bran Flakes-styled remixes for kitschy modern-lounge artist Tipsy, French electronic music pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey, Ipecac recording artist End, and others. To top it all off, in mid-late 2009 they will release a full-length album of commissioned remixes they’re constructing of legendary Raymond Scott material. With Otis in Montreal and Mildred in Seattle (living in a clown house!), their studio work often occurs through long-distance collaboration. Both are employed in web-related work and are obsessive record collectors, having collectively bought out a thrift store of over 5000 records at one point.
The new album I Have Hands is 100% samples. No other band dares to invite Lawrence Welk, Mister Rogers, Van Halen, and Strawberry Shortcake to the same party. One track uses Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” at its center, while juxtaposing the familiar guitar pluck from Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” and then ends with the Osmonds singing about freedom. While the look and feel is distinct, The Bran Flakes are right at home on the label that has championed Girl Talk, Steinski, and other samplephiliacs. As always, Illegal Art claims Fair Use for this recording. No harm was done to the original artists.
I Have Hands Tracklisting:
Release Date: February 24th, 2009
01 Hi
02 Rodeo Butterfly
03 KLAM
04 Stumble Out Of Bed (MP3)
05 I’m Not Feeling Very Well
06 Marchy March
07 Don Knotts
08 The Girl That I Used To Be
09 What It’s All About (MP3 I VIDEO)
10 Dance Of The Sugarsnap Fairy
11 Singing Dogs
12 Make A Funny Sound
13 You Can Do Most Anything
14 Do You Want Salad With Your Taco?
15 Mini Mountain Queen
16 The Sidewalk Song
17 I Wonder Where My Grandmother Is?
18 Mr. And Mrs. Footsie
19 Funky Feeling
20 I Comb My Hair Sideways
21 Van Pop
22 If I Loved You
23 Fifty Four Fifty
24 Jump Up!
25 Beat Head
26 The Crickets Ditty
27 Sunshine Country
28 I Am A Promise
29 I Have A Friend (MP3)
30 Bye
Tools and Hi-Res Photos:
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On The Web:
www.thebranflakes.com
www.myspace.com/thebranflakes
www.hellobran.blogspot.com
www.illegalart.net
www.myspace.com/illegalart
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Some Quotes About The Bran Flakes:
“I enjoyed your record very much, it is so fresh, so cool, made for people who have a ‘child soul’ and at the same time perfectly elaborated harmonically and technically with some funny winks to other composers. Hope you’ll continue to make such records, as you are doing.” – Jean Jacques Perrey
“I like it!” – Wild Man Fischer
“The guys behind The Bran Flakes have made playful and frenzied use of what turns up in thrift store dumpsters. Their dense layering of samples and sounds transcends the standard DJ style. ‘50s-era kiddie songs over deep dub... blissful use of aerobic instructions... a hi-fi test record blipped and blooped up... ‘space age pop’ put to inspirational use... urgent voice-overs stimulate... sex educational warnings to snicker at.” – Cool and Strange Music Magazine
“The Bran Flakes glides through the shattered and banal music scene with an emotional and unbridled landmark. It can be poisonous as it escapes rational explanation. The Bran Flakes belong to a new era, a new galaxy, a new genre. I find their songs very moving not only for the true nature of the childish, surreal and humorous arrangements but for the evidence that spontaneity can be combined magically with intelligence.” – Mateo Guiscafre, Siesta Records
Brooklyn-based singer Jessie Kilguss is riding high on the success of her sophomore album Nocturnal Drifter, released last week on the artist’s own Exotic Bird Recordings label. Kilguss was recently the subject in the venerable VenusZine (
“…a mix of Annie Lennox’s most sinister growl and PJ Harvey’s vocal anguish. This is disturbing music for disturbing times.” – VenusZine