Twisting its way like a sonic maelstrom and fresh from the Blackout Music camp comes the Zero Alpha EP from French drum & bass heavyweights Burr Oak. As you’d expect from an outfit with a pedigree like theirs, the music is spilling over with sonic aggression and power, raging with energy and making no excuses for itself in the process.
Burr Oak state “we wanted to speak about how life could be hard and violent and how AI (artificial intelligence) is supposed to help us to find a better way. Sadly, it’s still not used in many ways it could be, and people can be lazy to change. We’re generalizing here though. There are many good people out there!
The Title track “Zero Alpha” speaks about the fact there is no chief in music, no God. You could argue that we’re all one. It’s not a competition. We are just here to share some feelings, visions, and we’re enjoying it, no more than that. We wanted to do our own official soundtrack for the classic video game Silent Hill, which influenced us so much with its story and its music by Akira Yamaoka. A kind of nightmare I guess to our industrial influences. There is a barrage of constant noises throughout, a bit like if Pyramid Head was chasing us during our musical evasion!
There’s “Teleporter”, a very industrial sounding and noisy track too. We wanted to push everything to the max, going to the extremes in terms of sonic sound design and vibes. The horny Bass we made reminded us of Godzilla (or a kind of T-Rex scream). Imagine if H. G. Wells included Godzilla in The War of the Worlds.
“Bestial” was done as a tribute to the techy era from the mid-2000s. It was at these times we both fell in love with what is called “Neurofunk”. Something quite mental, with techno stabs and gritty bass, all in a loop without end. Even if we love the new sounds the new generation brings us, we still love these old-school vibes.
Finally “Human Life Cycle” is the weirdest track of the EP. It’s all about human life and AI all around us. How it interferes with us and vice versa. We both have a big techno background (we used to do some Techno stuff from the end of 90s), so we included these influences as Techno was (and still is?) considered as the future. We wanted the track to sound like a discussion between a human and a computer, a kind synergy with disharmonic intention. The very end of the track was done using a musical AI program, to include that concept as a real part of the composition. Basically, we were a trio for this one!
For each single or EP, we still continue our journey, travelling into the world, meeting new people, with good and bad situations, in search of the Burr Oak spirit. All are connected and at the end, you could read it as a big story.
After having done our first two-track single on Blackout, we started to do a full EP for them as this label is legendary for us and is definitely a big part of the music we love. Being a part of it now is one the most beautiful things we could have for our music. We love to work with people and labels as if they’re our family and that’s why we’re releasing stuff on a variety of labels like Blackout, Eatbrain or Trendkill. They’re all our family!”