WL//WH Video Premiere: BRUCH’s “Stillleben / Still Life” Stream of Consciousness

photo: (c) anna pühringer

“The Harbour Of The Broken Hearted” is a soliloquy of many. Searching for a simple form of beauty and the vast amount of attitude and power it carries. It is hope and devastation. It is beauty and fail. It’s nothing, but precious.Philipp Hanich

Bruch is the alter ego of the Munich, Germany-bred veteran soulful Rock’n’Roll crooner Philip Hanich, a Viennese denizen for the past twenty years as a renowned staple music producer and visual artist of the capital’s DIY alternative music scene, also as the co-runner of Totally Wired Records (2012-2016) and Cut Surface imprint.

WL//WH is pleased to premiere the video by Anna Pühringer for “Stillleben / Still Life”, the seventh song on Bruch’s newly released self-recorded and self-produced fifth album, “The Harbour of the Broken Hearted (THOYBH)”, via his own Cut Surface imprint and TROST Records.

Ramshackle but transcendent. Oscillating between the repetitive pulses of electronic music and organ-orchestrated minimalism, Bruch throws out comforting loops of sound just like fishing nets, that suck you into his stories unwaveringly. His evocative and unadorned vocal style adds to Bruch’s depth, soul and sincerity. Drifting and driven amidst uplifting gloom.

LP Artwork by Philip Hanich

Centred on the illuminating bright chimes of stirring lullaby melodies and grounded by low humming bass tones, the magnetic and cathartic “Stillleben” simmers, builds up, and ultimately fades out on hypnotic heart-pulsing layers of clattering and tumultuous percussions, bombastic hissing cymbals and spectral keyboard washes, to bolster and shiver in unison with a heartfelt stream-of-consciousness, delivering authentic poignant observations of life.

Anna Pühringer places 150 personal and random articles found in Bruch’s flat against a black backdrop to sync minimalist still lifes with the momentum of the soundtrack. Like memories, the colorful knick-knacks and useful objects appear and then disappear. But under the stress of harsh frequencies, they come into view fragmented and distorted. All in all, the piece evokes a multilayered sense of nostalgia, joy, sorrow, and ultimately catharsis.

BRUCH‘s 5th studio album, “The Harbour of the Broken Hearted (THOYBH)”, is out now, in Vinyl 12″/CD & Digital formats, via Cut Surface and TROST Records.

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