Brown Bread is a strange bedroom project of Astoria native Rebecca Doerfer. Even though it is a rather small EP, there are a lot of different styles and approaches thrown into these five tracks. Ranging from the giddiness of “the 1 I love” to the dusty sounds of “hide seek”, it overwhelms me a bit in how to describe all that’s going on here. Let’s start with the first track.
The first track’s skeletal drum programming reminds me of Weed’s EP ‘DC Hope’. Perhaps there’s a bit more emphasis on a higher fidelity than what he offered. “The one I love” is odd. It has a constant music box melody over children’s laughter and wordless singing.
“hide seek” is probably my favorite. On this track, it is kept so absolutely basic. No percussion exists. There isn’t any singing. You’re left with a tense, expansive mood. I feel this is my favorite song on the entire EP. Simplicity is usually the best for me and the execution for this track doesn’t make me want for anything.
Finally there are the last two songs. “White Gold” sounds a bit like lo-fi Le Tigre. I enjoyed this one a lot as well. They spent some time on figuring out how to pace the song. “(y)oohoo” uses environmental sounds such as the sound of rain. It felt like a good closer to me.
I liked the middle part of this EP the best. “hide seek” and “White Gold” are my favorites off of it. Some of the descriptors were a bit humorous to me as I didn’t feel so much a grunge feel. Rather, I felt the music had a dreamier, more distant vibe to it. Hopefully Brown Bread continues to improve, as this EP is a big improvement off of her last EP “is dead”. Here’s hoping.