'The Age of Ephemerality' album artwork (click for high res)
"An album for our times... Recorded in a 160-year old church and incorporating the sound of the original church organ, the album imitates the prophet’s role. But while the album is a blast of righteous and justified anger, it also brims with beauty, borne by the brass and strings." - A Closer Listen
“Magnificent stuff.” - Electronic Sound
"Harnessing elements of post-rock, metal, shoegaze, drone and flashes of electronica... This brutalist consideration of political corruption shows them to have their own dystopian character." - Prog
"Darkly beautiful songs from this French outfit that pair cinematic sweep with metal’s thunder for stormy, string-laden instrumentals.” - Bandcamp
"There’s something of Battles’ experimental impishness about their brand of atmospheric post-metal compositions, though more modern yet is the philosophy that underlies their lyricless songs.” - FLOOD
Today BRUIT ≤ release their spectacular new album ‘The Age Of Ephemerality’ via Pelagic - listen in full now. A philosophical, poetic and political reflection on our insatiable fascination with technology, a dependence as reverential as it is increasingly alienating and exploitative, ‘The Age Of Ephemerality’ is a seismic collision of old and new, of sounds organic and electric, with the trailblazing four-piece capturing the resultant symphony in all its chaotic, confrontational glory.
Speaking on the album's release, the band comment: "It is not a science-fiction album, it is about what’s happening right now, yesterday and tomorrow. But we hope that it will stay in your brain and in your heart a little bit longer. We love you."
Along with the album release today, the band have shared a new video of track "Progress/Regress", recorded fully analogue, live in the studio, capturing the majesty of the band's live show.The band comment: "Three weeks ago, we were back at “studio Capitol” to prepare our live set, and we took the opportunity to film a 100% analog live session. Recorded on tape and filmed on film, we only had one chance to realise this single long take. Like a tribute to the recordings of the past, imperfect and devoid of production artifice, where the organic performance is the only element. It seemed to us the ideal aesthetic and medium in which to question Progress or Regress?"
Watch "Progress/Regress": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZD9r-_BqKs
Listen to 'The Intoxication of Power' in full: https://orcd.co/bruit
The video for "Progress/Regress" follows the recent clip for "The Intoxication of Power", which saw their vast sound fill the cavernous space of a metro station construction site, 100 feet underground in Toulouse - watch here.
Rising from the smouldering remains of various bands in 2016, BRUIT ≤ \ˈbrü-ē\ [French, literally, noise] assembled with the desire to escape the confines of the ‘big business’ music industries and return to creation as an artistic process unadulterated by commercial constraints or expectations.
Initially considered a studio project only, 2018’s ‘Monolith’ EP (Elusive Sound) saw the four musicians behind BRUIT ≤ unleash their expansive and intensely emotive hybrid of ambient electronica, modern classical and panoramic post-rock onto the world with a now legendary 20-date tour across France and Belgium. Bolstered by the phenomenal response, the Toulouse-based band returned to their studio, reinvigorated to begin work on their debut full-length, ‘The machine is burning and now everyone knows it could happen again’.
Digitally released to widespread critical acclaim and subsequently physically released through Pelagic Records in 2021, ‘The machine is burning…’ propelled BRUIT ≤ across Europe, playing over 50 shows through 12 countries, performing on prestigious festival stages including Roadburn, ArcTanGent, Amplifest, Dunk and Damnation and touring alongside genre luminaries such as Amenra and EZ3kiel. Having earned a fearsome reputation as a live act, BRUIT ≤ subsequently closed this chapter of the band with the musical refuge of 2023’s contemplative and delicate ‘Apologie du temps perdu vol.1’ EP (Pelagic Records) before downing tools entirely to tour the world as the backing band for legendary electronic act M83.
Wanting to reconnect with the shoegaze ambience of his critically acclaimed 2003 ‘Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts’ and 2005 ‘Before The Dawn Heals Us’ albums, Anthony Gonzalez, the musical visionary behind M83, integrated BRUIT ≤ into his live band and also entrusted the musical direction of the tour to Clément Libes, the band’s bassist. It was during this tour that the initial sketches of the band’s next record began to take shape. Both emboldened and overwhelmed by the experience, the quartet eventually fled the endless turmoil of the road and retreated to the heights of the Pyrénées mountains where they finished five new songs, which were then recorded in an 160-year old church in their city of Toulouse. This collection of songs is ‘The Age Of Ephemerality’, a full-length album that finds the band remaining steadfast as ever in their sonic roots and creative principles whilst also pushing their musical horizons to the bleeding edge.
A cautionary sonic exploration of society’s deference to the algorithm; ‘The Age Of Ephemerality’ will not be available on major international streaming platforms. Much like the rest of the band’s discography, the album reinforces the collective’s staunch boycott of Spotify; a response to the platform’s consistently diminishing artist payout policies as well as billionaire CEO Daniel Ek’s recent investment in the arms trade. Written in the mountains and recorded in a church, the album is BRUIT ≤ experimenting with capturing the sound of physical space as if it were an instrument in its own right; as something that can never be artificially generated or digitally replicated.
Amplifying contemporary instruments, tools and tech in a building hundreds of years old; synths, drums, strings, an eight-strong electric guitar orchestra made up of friends and collaborators from the Toulouse scene (Slift, Plebian Grandstand, Mourir, Zelezna, Orne) and the original, 1864 church organ collide in an incendiary aural statement that spurns society’s reliance on technocratic tendencies in favour of celebrating togetherness, the power of community and the creative inspiration of the moment.
Afterwards, the band spent weeks between Toulouse’s Studio Capitole and their own Studio La Taniere, experimenting with an array of configurations and arrangements that push the idea of post-production to its limits. By layering contrasting compositional methods from different technological eras on top of a sprawling collection of sounds old and new, BRUIT ≤ deliver an astounding sonic choreography that forces the listener to confront the inequalities and injustices behind the casual convenience of the modern day music industries.
Just as BRUIT ≤ seek to expose how desperate things have become, ‘The Age of Ephemerality’ serves as a harrowing yet profound reminder that the only way to break algorithmic malaise and see real change is to resist, to do it ourselves.
BRUIT ≤ are:
Théophile Antolinos - Guitars, Banjo, Tapes, Soundscapes
Clément Libes - Bass, Baritone Guitars, Bass VI, Violin, Viola, Organ, Piano, Modular Synth, Programming
Luc Blanchot - Cello, Programming, Synth
Julien Aoufi - Drums
'The Age Of Ephemerality' track list:
Side A
1. Ephemeral - official video
2. Data - official video
3. Progress / Regress - official video
Side B
4. Techno-Slavery / Vandalism
5. The Intoxication Of Power
BRUIT ≤ live dates (w/Alcest):
23/08/25 Maastricht (NL) Pelagic Fest
24/08/25 Maastricht (NL) Pelagic Fest
25/09/25 Nantes (FR) Le Ferailleur
26/09/25 Paris (FR) La maroquinerie
27/09/25 Béthune (FR) Le Poche
07/10/25 Rennes (FR) Antipode *
08/10/25 La Roche-sur-Yon (FR) Quai M *
09/10/25 Toulouse (FR) Interference *
10/10/25 Barcelona (ES) Apolo *
11/10/25 Montpellier (FR) Victoire 2 *
12/10/25 Istres (FR) L’Usine *
14/10/25 Bordeaux (FR) Le Rocher Palmer *
15/10/25 Tours (FR) Le Temps Machine *
16/10/25 Le Mans (FR) Les Saulnières *
17/10/25 Ris-Orangis (FR) Le Plan *
19/10/25 Besançon (FR) La Rodia *
21/10/25 Lausanne (CH) Les Docks *
22/10/25 Lyon (FR) La Rayonne *
23/10/25 Nancy (FR) L’autre Canal *
24/10/25 Antwerp (BE) Trix *
25/10/25 Nijmegen (NL) Doornroosje *
14/11/25 Martigny (CH) Les Caves Du Manoir
15/11/25 Neunkirchen (DE) Gloomaar Festival
And more to be announced...
* Opening for Alcest
Links:
INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK
BANDCAMP
PELAGIC ARTIST PAGE |
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