BRANDISNT – “Existential” – floatable tones and ethereal melodies

Brandon Tyler Whittington, better known by his stage name BRANDISNT, is an American songwriter. Brandon started off creating comical rap songs under the alias Lil Brass and uploaded his songs to the site SoundCloud in 2018. Now Brandon has started to make an approach into singing, melodic rapping, and full track production instead of just rapping. BRANDISNT is the embodiment of all thoughts, emotions, and stereotypes that have their own voice and metaphorical being. More technically speaking, it isn’t Brandon, and that’s where the name BRANDISNT was born.

“Existential”, the Ambient and Electronic EP by BRANDISNT is set to release on June 28, 2020, and adds yet another twist to the artist’s musically aesthetic. The Ep contains 5 songs, none which overrun 3 minutes of playing time, but give plenty of insight into BRANDISNT’s creativity.

Before artists like BRANDISNT, the only sort of ambient music largely recognized by the general public, was the sort of reflective, extremely somber compositional ambient music. But these new wave of creatives have taken the serenity and cerebral atmospherics of Ambient, and coupled them with synth pads, strings, keyboards, sampling and mid-tempo beats, to create a dreamier and progressively freewheeling sound.

BRANDISNT takes this technique, as well as an emphasis on beat-oriented sounds, and reverb, bass and percussion, and forges several tracks that retain the textured, placid tones of ambient, with the post-rave rhythmic aesthetic of Electronica.

These are then coupled with floatable tones and ethereal melodies to carve out poignantly captivating tracks such as “Electric Love”, which features a hazily effected vocal, and the title track, “Existential”, showcasing a swirl of warm, all-embracing pads. They bring with them, soothingly cinematic synth arrangements that are a fair indication of the sort of widescape sound that you can expect from this stunningly atmospheric EP.

As the title suggests, “Fast” is more urgent in its approach, but without losing its understated appeal. It opens with a wonderfully synth line that seems to twist and fold in on itself, and builds in the rest of the instrumentation in carefully crafted steps, adding bass and beats.

Care has been taken to give ample space to each sound on “A Weird Feeling / Nostalgia”, and thoughtfully stretched out intelligently over the three minutes that this track runs to. And such is the beautifully devised arrangement, that by the time the tune is over, you feel as if you have been relaxing and listening to it for hours.

This latter track is in turns, sophisticated, sprawling and hypnotic, working equally as well, whether you’re chilling out, or merely need some music to lose yourself into. Along with the “Electric Love” and “Existential” it manages to feel like a surreal dream-like track, encapsulating rhythmically and conceptually, the best attributes this genre-blend has to offer.

In general, this EP delivers tightly crafted melodies, and creative motifs, working in perfect unison with the mood-inducing aesthetic. Most underground electronic music composers fail miserably when they try to create works like “Existential”, BRANDISNT has managed to go beyond my expectations.

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