Review: Braids - Native Speaker

Artist: Braids
Title: Native Speaker
Format: Full-length
Year: 2011
Label: Kanine
Genre: Neo-pysychedelica / freak folk / dream pop
Rating: 82 / 100

Two days ago I wrote something about the first EP of psychedelic pop project Therapies Son, that same day my eyes fell on this debut from Braids, more psychedelica in the same week? Will my ears be able to handle so much funky, freaky music in such a short amount of time? Yes, period. Native Speaker is pretty awes0me, and different enough from Therapies Son to follow each other up.

Even 'though I hate this comparison, and even 'though it doesn't do any justice to their music, Braids could be called the Canadian answer to Animal Collective. That is, objectively speaking there are a lot of things in common, but there are fortunately a shitload of things very different about Braids. The thing I like the most are the ethereal type of vocals, sometimes reminding me of Kate Bush. sometimes even reminding me of Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser. The ethereal vocals are one of the reasons that make this album so damn surreal sounding, it's like dream pop, but representing the overall feeling of a dream much better than any conventional dream pop band will ever be able to accomplish.

One will even be pushed further from everything that's real by the very unorthodox style of instrumentation. A major part of the music is loop-based, creating a fairly repetitive base of rythmic melodies, synthesized drones and effects drenched percussion. A perfect example of what they are able to make with this manner of creating music is Lammicken, by far the most surreal track on this album, drenched in noise and conducted by the vocal beauty Braids is able to deliver to one's ears, this is probably their best offering of their still very short lifespan.

This is what could be described as a perfect debut, offering a great introduction to their music, but still leaving some space to evolve further. Native Speaker is worth being praised, but it will probably take one or two albums for Braids to really discover their full abilities of creating sound in the way they do. For me this is a precursor of what might eventually evolve into one of 2013/14's top albums.

Little Hand sounds the best with the Civil Defense Sirene howling in the background.

Selwin.