“Hello friends and enemies! Happy holidays!
Just in time for the holiday season I present you the new Bram Cools album ‘Pandemic Lockdown Blues‘!
I know it has been announced earlier, as the album recorded during the first Belgian corona lockdown this spring. But I’m not a full-time professional musician, and time has been weird lately, so it took some time to finish things. But after some silence the whole thing is finished, and released as an early christmas present for those of us who are into less predictable or commercial music.
I probably need to warn you that even with some pop and swing sounds here and there it has become not only an expression of creativity but also sometumes a rather dark album, being inspired by both the corona pandemic and the resulting lockdown as well as a crisis of faith in a religious ‘tradition’ that sold its soul and integrity to the devil. Musically the sounds very diverse album again, with songs in three-an-a-half languages (English, standard Dutch, Flemish and toki pona) as well as instrumentals, and almost every song in a different style although triphop and downtempo electronica-infused folk play an important role in the overall sound. While electronica is playing a huge role in the sound (I still don’t have a drumkit to record, and neither do I have a mellotron or orchestra) most songs were written on guitar and there is some (ab)use of mandolin an melodica too.
The album title is probably a bit misleading: while there may few jazzy chords blues as a musical genre isn’t really represented much in the mix, there is only the blues as a strong feeling of depression and pain about the state of the world. And that blues is definitely present, as it was present in my own life and on planet Earth in general.
Another note: this is the album as recorded this spring, a crappy bedroom-recorded lo-fi opera of despair chronicling some very dark months. I probably could have redone things differently, and re-recorded certain parts (yes, rhytmically there are some things wrong with ‘alien’ for example) but I chose to keep the original recording to stay true to the feel of the moment, as a document from the dark and confusing time that was the first Belgian corona lockdown.
So, enough talking, it’s better to listen to it yourself!”