Tag: Single Review: B•R•A•U•N Prague

Portland, OR-based producer, electronic music artist and multi-instrumentalist Ben Braun can trace some of the origins of his own musical career to growing up in a musical home, as his own father played drums in Hall and Oates‘ backing band. Interestingly enough, the youngest Braun is best known as one-half of synth pop act Mackintosh Braun, an act that received attention for an 80s synth pop and New Wave-inspired sound. And while Braun’s solo recording project B•R•A•U•N will further cement his reputation for crafting 80s inspired synth pop, the project and its forthcoming full-length debut Silent Science began from Braun’s awareness of the personal freedoms that he felt he had sacrificed to live in he comforts of new technology, and as a result, the material possesses a longing for a much simpler life — but while paradoxically revealing his unique production style featuring lush and propulsive synths and chopped up vocal samples.

Silent Science’s second and latest single “Prague” while nodding at Tears for Fears‘ “Head Over Heels” and much more contemporary fare like Rush Midnight and others, features Braun’s production style of layers of propulsive and shimmering synths, boom bap beats,  rousing hooks, and an angular bass line paired with Braun’s breathy vocals but underneath the slickly produced and lush surface is a deeply reflective yearning that gives the material a subtly cinematic vibe.