Live Review: BRUX commands and intimidates on her debut track 'I'm Back'
Packed with self assured vocals and dense production, BRUX launches herself into the scene with a dark club heater fit to tear up a vogue ball near you.
Overnight, producer BRUX has just dropped her first single 'I'm Back', following her slot as the only Australian in the latest crop of musos chosen for the Red Bull Music Academy and a debut feature on MADEUX's latest album. Following such promising beginnings, this debut single has a lot to live up to, and it more than delivers launching the artist into her deserved spotlight over brooding club sounds.
Rubbery drums and pitched down vocals set the tone for the whole track, establishing that BRUX really did not come to play. Her self assured delivery and straight up lyricism snap in time to the beats syncopation, channeling club style ballroom beats and their MC's in the first minute. As the track moves along, sirens wail, hi-hats skitter and synths bubble, as BRUX assembles the pieces for a big finale.
Not even halfway through yet, a wall of buzzing synths overtake everything, their hugeness more reminiscent of primal techno sound design. Again BRUX's vocals are back but now pitched up and just as commanding, as every element blends together beneath her. The half-tempo track gains momentum in its density, and even though the many syncopated layers leave sly pockets of negative space each element feels huge in the scope of the track. The whole track is fully realised and, alongside the Madeux collab, shows that BRUX has a complete concept behind her but it has us wondering.
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The lead image of this release is a reimagined version of The Empress, a tarot card often associated with feminine power and creative energy, that translates directly to "I'm Back", as explained by BRUX herself. "I wanted to demonstrate role reversal in the way that women are sexualised as objects and talked about crudely by men in a lot of today’s music...I did the same, but from a woman’s perspective," she said.
Debut releases are often chosen as a kind of mission statement for the artist, acting as a first impression to the audience letting them what they're about and what's to come. 'I'm Back' is an intimidating official introduction to BRUX, proving with her mix of self assured lyricism and delivery matched with thumping production that she's one to watch.
'I'm Back' is out now via etcetc/DIM MAK.
PHOTO from Facebook
WORDS BY HOLLY O’NEILL
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