Name: Brutter
Members: Christian Wallumrød (drum machines, synth, electronics, auto harp), Fredrik Wallumrød (drums, drum synths, electronics, lap steel)
Nationality: Norwegian
Current release: Brutter's third full-length album, Outta, is out via SusannaSonata.
Recommendations:
1) the Swedish group Triakel performing the song 'Innan gryningen' on their album Vintervisor
2) Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgård's trilogy 'The morning star' /  'The wolves from the forest of eternity' / 'Det tredje riket' (not sure it's translated to English yet (?)

If you enjoyed this Brutter interview and would like to stay up to date with the band and their music, visit the duo on bandcamp. The members also have their individual websites: Christian Wallumrød, Fredrik Wallumrød (on Instagram).



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

Fredrik: What almost always happens when I listen to music, is that I start moving. Wouldn’t call it dancing, just tiny movements, nodding with the pulse, beat or movements that I recognize - always with my eyes open.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist?

Fredrik: I grew up in church, with a lot of music with vocal focus. So I guess I sang a lot, still do. For me, I would rate that very high.

Music for me is a very substantial and natural part of my daily life.

Yes, I believe one can train/learn to be an artist.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

Fredrik: I discovered a lot of music at that age, and of course practiced my instrument a lot at that age, in relation to all the discoveries.

Most of the music I discovered then, I now never listen to, for some reason. Maybe I listened too much to it and got tired of it or I just moved on and got to listen to something else.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

Fredrik: Working together with fellow musicians is one of the keys for me. I am not a genius, but with others maybe we get to create something that has a tiny sparkle of it.

I try to make something that sounds fresh and unheard, and often end up making something that someone can recognize as “heard before”

Christian: I regard music as a fantastic gift and phenomenon in our lives and in our society; it's a sort of ongoing mystery, very complex and very simple, constantly developing and moving, constantly moving people in so many different ways.

I guess I consider everything I do as some attempt to contribute to this big, ongoing thing, this community of making and experiencing sound and music.  

To quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

Fredrik: I believe that everything we hear, everything we discover when it comes to music and sound, is influencing the way we create or think about music.

So I would say that I discover the idea but create the music that comes from the idea, if that makes sense ...

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

Fredrik: When I listen to my own music, I'm comparing my impression with what my impression was the last time I listened to that piece. I'm not sure what my personal sound is, exactly. But it's definitely groove -or beat orientated.

Christian: I suppose it depends on the time span; it takes a long time to forget the actual work of making an album, and thus to get rid of everything that might inflect my listening. It doesn't mean negative things, it's just that the total load of information stored in the body and mind connected to a specific situation of performing and making music will have a certain impact on the listening ever after.

As for definition of personal sound, I'll happily leave that to others.  

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

Fredrik: Some time ago, I went to an MRI examination, you know when you're lying down inside this huge tube machine with the loudest noise you can imagine. That is one of the greatest musical sound experiences I've ever had.

It's not non-human-made, but I don’t think the ones developing that machine thought that I would have a great auditive experience out of it!

Christian: I can relate to Fredrik's experience with this machine, but still, for me it's a bit on the scary side ... However, standing very close to a fog horn when it finally releases its enormous sound after building up the necessary air pressure for 15 minutes. Extremely powerful and in its own way very beautiful.

The yearly amazing experience of sound and rhythm and bizarre invention coming from the blackbird is of course also a highly musical thing.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

Fredrik: I feel drawn to many different things in music, they don't have to be extremes; a good chorus, a well played drum groove, well harmonized vocals, the simplest triangle part, the most quiet long drone from a heavily effected guitar, a synthesized sound that I don't know where comes from, beats or pulses that won't add up or they meet at the weirdest moments in a strange groove, a sad country song;

I can feel drawn to anything, as long as I think it sounds the way I Iike it.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

Fredrik: With Brutter, we always try to play parts or pulses that do not meet at points defined by given periods, as bars or time signatures. With our new album Outta we've added some string-instruments, as autoharp and lap steel, The last piece on the album is called “Nachtstück,” and is a quiet piece, consisting of very simple, strict pulses and some chord-alike string parts that we keep on repeating. But it sort of never meets at the same time twice.

I am very happy with the way it ended up sounding. It became a beautiful little good night song, that is both soothing and disturbing.

Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

Fredrik: I conduct “experiments” for sure. Like, “what happens if I do this with that”, but it's not at all based on scientific insights at all. I'm not that intelligent, haha.

Christian: I guess I consider basically everything we do with Brutter as some sort of experiment, mainly in the sense that we try things we haven't tried before in that particular manner; could be as basic as putting together two different tempos or patterns or sounds which we haven't yet tried.

I would probably not be particularly interested in the scientific part of it, but I'm very drawn to and fascinated by how groovy the total experience of two un-synchronized pulses or patterns can be.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

Fredrik: In a way it makes my life more meaningful, making music is what I do for a living, and I've been very fortunate to be able to do that for years. It takes up a whole lot of my time and my thinking, and it sort of defines and rules the way I spend my life.

I'm not sure if I learn so much about life by understanding music, but it makes my life bearable and meaningful, in a world and society that's not always the kindest to humanity.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Fredrik: The result of performing or making music is definitely more abstract than making a great cup of coffee, I would say. But if you are in any way moved by receiving a great cup of coffee, I guess you would easily be moved by listening to a piece of music. It should talk to the same parts of your receptors in your brain.

Christian: to me making a great cup or plate of anything has a somewhat strange but also limited relation to making/performing music. I think music is for me extraordinary and especially awesome compared to so many things - including coffee and food - it makes the question a bit complicated..;)

Speaking about what we express through music, I must admit I have no idea. I am totally convinced that music itself is always able to express something to the listener, and that for the neighbor listener the music would express something either slightly or profoundly different.

We put a lot of ourselves into the music we make and perform, but I believe the music itself and how it moves and hits (or not) is somehow totally beyond precise knowledge or control.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

Fredrik: I can't say I have, that I recall.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

Fredrik: I would like to see music being more important as an artform that people would appreciate, rather than putting some music on every picture, commercial, podcast, documentary, or any other visual media available to the public; that's by my opinion a degrading of the art of music, and a transformation into sound pollution, more than anything else.