Bearplane takes off

Ladies and gentlemen, please remain seated with your seatbelts tightly fastened until the aircraft has landed — oh wait, it just did. The “bearcraft,” that is. Having barely recovered from his premier album, “Portrait of the Artist as a Dead Man,” which he released to the blogosphere last February, joint Dance and Music major Philippe Bronchtein ’10 dropped his sophomore effort, “Bearcraft Carrier” on Nov. 11. Bronchtein, who operates under the name Bearplane when mixing and producing heavily-synthesized dance anthems, pulled together eleven new tracks for his latest album of electronic music.

Similar to his first album, a number of the new tracks sample a diverse range of pre-existing audio. From disco to funk and even recorded literature, there is really no telling what one might hear meshed between layers of synth and bass. The phrase “we are the children of god,” which finds its way into the first track on the album, “The Children Are the Future,” is actually a vocal sample taken from an old sermon which Bronchtein stumbled upon (not literally) online.

“The Internet is the craziest,” said Bronchtein. “You can find hours and hours of samples, like full sermons.”

When the creator and sole member of Bearplane sits down to create a new song, he typically starts with a sound byte of some sort, whether it be a voice-over or the orchestral interludes found in classic disco.

“I love a lot of electro,” he explained, “and I love disco because there are really, really melodic parts to everything.” The orchestral swoops and big builds in energy and dropping back down are all qualities of the disco style that Bronchtein admires and tries to incorporate into his own work.

“Philippe is getting really good at grabbing a wide range of sources in his music and making them fully his own, absorbing them completely into the music,” said Professor of Music and electronic musician Peter Hamlin ’73 after listening to the latest album. Hamlin and Bronchtein have paired up in the past to put on electronic music shows at 51 Main, but Bearplane, Hamlin reemphasized, is the sole work of the student.

And a great deal of work is required to produce tracks as dense as those found on “Bearcraft” — every single track on the album consists of at least 15 or 16 layers before mix-down, according to Bronchtein. With new technology making it ever easier to add layer upon layer, it becomes a trick in itself in knowing when to stop. Bronchtein likens the process to writing a good paper.

“When writing a paper,” he explained, “I write down everything I’m thinking about, and then narrow it down.”

The secret, he claims, is knowing how and when to exercise self-control.

“Just like you wouldn’t use five guitars,” he explained, “I wouldn’t use eight synths, just for the mere fact that it would sound weird.”

Once Bronchtein has hit on a goldmine of a sample and paired it with an equally-dynamic melody and proceeded to add in the magical toppings and condiments we call layers, he moves on to mixing.

“It’s really hard to make it tasteful and not overwhelming,” he said. “I mix it on different sound systems, and create a bunch of different versions, and then try to find the happy medium.

“A lot of it is just trial and error,” he added.

Bronchtein uses an array of digital mixing software all stored on his personal computer, along with other equipment that he has accumulated over the years by “fiending” on Craigslist and other sources — a collection he lovingly refers to as “mad toys.”

Bronchtein’s mastery of the technology is something that Hamlin particularly admires, especially when it comes to the computer software.

“I learn a lot from watching him work,” Hamlin said of Bronchtein. “He starts with some idea or sample, then can put it through quite an extensive range of processes to change it substantially before he gets what he wants. Watching him create material is very interesting — he works in a fluid way, is constantly interacting with the sounds he’s working with. He seems very tactile when he’s working — you get the feeling of someone working with a piece of clay, constantly molding and refining it until it’s just right.”

This artist’s careful attention when combined with technical know-how seems to have paid off — “Bearcraft Carrier” comes across as not just a solid, feel-good dance album, but a compositionally-sound delight. “Neck Tattoos,” the third song on the album, plays on the ear like an ethereal pinball machine and incorporates immensely satisfying builds, especially at the 1:38 mark and the 1:57 bridge. A new melody, added just after the two-minute mark, is perfectly dissonant and brings the song home.

“I love the use of vocals in ‘Throat Babies’ and the use of the spoken word in ‘Step Left, Step Right, Around!’ really appeals to me,” said Hamlin. “But as I listen to the album,” he went on to say, “I like each piece at the moment, and also feel they all complement each other very well. As I was listening, I’d say, ‘This is my favorite,’ then the next song would play and I’d say, ‘No, this is my favorite.’”

Several others outside the Middlebury music department are also talking enthusiastically about Bearplane’s newest release. Creator and editor of the well-established Kickin’ the Peanuts music blog, Patrick D’Arcy ’12, who blogged on Bearplane’s initial release, compared the two bodies of work.

“Personally, I think Bearplane is at his best when he pushes the pop sensibility of his sound, like on ‘09’ from ‘Bearcraft Carrier,’ or ‘Ultimate Gluttony’ and ‘So Relaxed’ from his first album,” D’Arcy wrote in an e-mail. “He’s got a really great ear for those types of sounds, and I almost wish the new album had a bit more of that.”

Likewise a fan of Bearplane’s first production, WRMC Music Manager David Foote ’10, however, tended to agree with Hamlin as to the structural soundness of the new songs and musical growth of the creator.

“It’s as fun as the first one, but he’s put more thought into the composition,” said Foote. “It’s up there with a lot of the music of this kind being put out by promoters right now.”

Bronchtein, who is already raring to get his next album underway, hopes to perform on campus sometime during January, but in the mean time, eager listeners can hear his latest jams being broadcast on WRMC 91.1 FM or can download the album via the Bearplane Facebook group. One word of advice, though, to those seeking out Bronchtein’s electronic oeuvre: do not visit Bearplane.org. As Bronchtein pointed out, someone else has also co-opted the “bear-air” pun.