Brandtson Remix Contest

Grand Prize Winner

 

Runner Up

 

Grand Prize

Merchandise from Brandtson
The ACID Pro 6 Music Production Bundle
Sony Network Walkman NW-E307 Digital Music Player

About the Contest

The Militia Group is shaping up as the little label that could. Latest on their roster is Brandtson, the Cleveland indie band that recently scored a track on The O.C. Here, Militia gives up Brandtson's electro-anthem "Nobody Dances Anymore" for remixing.

About the Band

Having already exceeded the shelf-life of the average indie rock band by a few years, a series of tours, and a handful of albums, Brandtson could have used the departure of original bassist John Sayre as their moment to ride off into the Cleveland sunset with their reputation and legacy intact. But just as a brush with death can cause some people to live their lives with a newfound purpose, Brandtson found a new bassist, regrouped, and agreed to shake off all of the trappings of comfort and complacency that can cripple a band that has been writing songs together for eight years, creating their boldest, most immediate, and most dynamic album in the process. Welcome to Brandtson’s second act.

A song cycle built on the idea of confronting agents of manipulation, Hello, Control is a statement of liberation and experimentation. “On my end of things, songwriting has always been about coming up with interesting guitar parts and trying to piece a song together around it,” says guitarist Matt Traxler. “The first thing that pulled me away from that mindset was “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones. I was just listening to it, and there is nothing going on in the song. There’s the sitar part that’s really simple, drums, bass, guitars, whatever – everything is just an afterthought, and it’s the vocal melody that sucks you in. I think we all realized that was something that we paid too little attention to in the past.”

With the addition of bassist/electronic auteur Adam Boose (formerly of Cleveland synth standouts Furnace St.), Brandtson not only subverts the formula of past releases but obliterates it entirely. “Bringing Adam into the mix, and him being from a background of electronic music really helped with that,” says guitarist/vocalist Myk Porter, describing the band’s eagerness to break down the previous strictures of their sound. “Before Adam joined the band, we were the same four guys for eight years, and you definitely get locked into a formula working with the same people for so long. The fact that a lot of the writing on this record was done in front of a laptop instead of in a room with four guys with guitars, you have a melody in your head and instead of plucking it out on a guitar you thump it out on a Moog, and that can put a new spin on things.”

Sharpening their pointed pop hooks on Boose’s mastery of electronic programming, the band veers from mewing guitar lines and pulsing dance-rock hook of the apocalyptic “Earthquake & Sharks” to the twitchy shout-along anthem “Denim Iniquity” and the computerized croon of “Nobody Dances Anymore.” Arrangements are simplified to reinforce the primacy of the melody, with the previously cutting and slashing guitars now churning and twitching, with Jared Jolley’s complex rhythms forming complex patterns around Boose’s electronic blips and bloops. Add it up, and it’s a beguilingly original work, a sonic tableau where New Order and Depeche Mode wander onto the dance floor before being pushed to the sidelines by the sound of Franz Ferdinand bumping heads with Kraftwerk.

Both a reintroduction and a statement of intent, Hello, Control is a moment of rebirth caught on record, a band reinventing themselves, reinvigorating their sound, and reaffirming the power of rock and roll. This is the sound of a band losing and finding themselves all at the same time. Brandtson is very much alive.