TAROCK MUSIC

Bruce Cohen is a musician and composer hailing from Philadelphia, with an interesting musical background.  He was a founding member and keyboard player in The Reds®  who have played live with bands like The Police, Blondie, The Ramones and Public Image, amongst others.  Also releasing several successful albums on major and indie labels. They have also released several successful albums.

As a solo artist, Bruce has been releasing material since 2009, and his music is essentially ambient electronica with elements of funk and acid house.  He regards his influences as Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel and Klaus Schulze.  This twelve track album, Five BC, is a continuation in a series of albums that started with his debut, One BC.

It starts with the chilled out acid house of Groovatronic, based around a punchy ‘four to the floor’ kick drum and syncopated, exotic percussion. Throughout the album, Cohen incorporates elements of tribal Latin and African style rhythms to great effect.  The synths are subtle and float across the sonic spectrum, having a mesmeric effect.  They are layered skillfully across the duration of the track, so that they are continually metamorphosing.

Kaiju is a distinct contrast, a loping, almost hip hop-esque beat as the backdrop for an instantly memorable high end synth riff, counterpointed by a rumbling dub synth bass.  It sounds so modern that it could be straight from the production house of hip hop producers like Dr. Dre or Jay-Z.  Once again, the track builds gradually across its six minute duration, with some wild synths towards the end.

Saturn Drift, as the title suggests, is a spaced out Brian Eno-style ambient instrumental.  Cohen conjures up a magical soundscape that transports you as a listener and by the end you feel you are indeed orbiting Saturn.  A sax-like synth melody meanders across the sonic haze, and the sense of displaced time is compelling.

Push Play is much more close to traditional electronica. Like Groovatronic, it’s based around a house beat with inventive use of percussion.  The bass line has a very addictive melody, while circular synth patterns in the high end draw you in further.  The final minute is a kaleidoscopic swirl of sonic Technicolor.

Silence is another ambient piece that takes you to distant realms in your imagination, Cohen weaves a potent spell with amorphous synths circling and swirling.  The following Electric Samba is an unexpected contrast, an uptempo, funky groove that seems tailor made for the dance floor and recalls the Balearic house era of the 1990’s.  The percussion patterns have an internal melody that grips the ear and the beat is simply irresistible.  My personal favorite on the album.

Somber is an interesting blend of the two disparate styles, halfway between ambient and house, with a magical sounding melody interweaving amongst pulsing chordal synths.  The contrasts keep coming with the hugely funky breakbeat funk of What Is It, which grabs you from its first seconds.  A pitch shifted keyboard works in a pleasingly angular way to the sparse but effective Jah Wobble-esque bassline.  Another highlight.

On The Road is different once more; a skittish, industrial beat is the bedrock for a moody low end synth while melodic fractals splinter and evolve across five and a half minutes in a hypnotic fashion.  Sunday is half the length and the most sparse piece here, simply a low cello-like synth carving out a solemn, hymnal melody.  Haunting.

No One takes us back into the world of exotic rhythm, an intricate beat full of percussive subtleties that get the top tapping.  Gradually, a haze of synths take center stage, conjuring an enigmatic vibe.  The final track Requiem feels like a continuation, perhaps by design. It’s another ambient piece and the most mystical track on the album.  For me, it gave me that same sense of quiet awe you might feel under a clear night sky and it leaves the listener feeling somewhat elated, a satisfying conclusion to a musical odyssey.

Overall, this album is a fascinating blend of eclectic styles within the electronica genre.  Bruce Cohen has learned to master writing both the atmospheric ambient pieces and the up-tempo tracks that employ elements of house and funk, as well as the rhythms of world music from different cultures.  The result is an album full of twists and turns, inventive touches and transcendent moments. Ideal for those looking for the more sophisticated end of electronica,  Bruce Cohen deserves recognition as a class act in his field and this album should help bring him to a wider audience.

∎ Alex Faulkner, The Faulkner Review, United Kingdom, 2018

With a long and diverse music career already behind him thanks to his time in Philadelphia group The Reds, Bruce Cohen has had plenty of time to hone his craft and find the sounds and styles that work best for him.  Blending soulful ambiance with upbeat and inspiring funk rhythms, Cohen’s solo career has shown both personal and professional growth and an undeniable steady evolution – Cohen is certainly not one to rest on his laurels when it comes to the music he’s so passionate about and his ambition and passion for what he does is once again displayed for all to hear on his album Five BC.

Opening with Groovatronic, the collection gets off to a positive and upbeat start, thanks in particular to the impressive bass-line while the synths aren’t overpowering and add a sort of audibly shimmering effect to the track.  Follow up Kaiju meanwhile features more of a modern, hip-hop/R&B style beat, gradually building, as its predecessor did, to a synth fueled climax.

Music fans familiar with the likes of Brian Eno – among others – won’t fail to recognize the rather distinct sound and style of Saturn Drift, which plays out almost like a homage to one of Cohen’s biggest influences, while Silence is perhaps the most ambient of the tracks on the collection; the swirl of the synths alone are enough to make you feel as if you’re being taken to another place (you can decide where!).  It’s just one of those tracks that’s perfect for listening to after a stressful day or when you’re just needing to tune the world out for a while.

Adding a perhaps unexpected flare to the album at its halfway point, Electric Samba is almost certainly the one inclusion that’s sure to have listeners fighting the urge to dance along, whenever they are or whatever they’re up to and for this reason alone, it’s a highlight of the collection.  With its up-tempo and down-right funky groove, it all but beckons listeners to hit the dance floor or let loose in the kitchen (maybe not in the car though) and the percussion led rhythm is so good it’ll stick with you for days and have you smiling.

The title of the next track might be Somber, but don’t be fooled – it is in fact another toe-tapping electronic little number with instrumentation and a rhythm that’ll be hard to get out of your head.  Mixing ambient and house – a combo that shouldn’t work, but somehow does here – with yet another mystical, magical sounding melody – it’s a musical testament to Cohen’s ability transport a listener elsewhere in just a matter of minutes.

While most of the inclusions on Five BC are upbeat and uplifting, Sunday is something else entirely. Coming in at almost half the length of the longest tracks on the album at 2 minutes 43, it’s easily the most secluded and sparse feature.  With little more to it than a cello-led (or what certainly sounds like one) synth, it’s solemn and hymn like, but also haunting and lingering in its simplicity.

Closer Requiem flashes back to the ambient sound and style of Silence, but that doesn’t mean they’re anything alike. Instead, Requiem is likely to stick with listeners purely because of the hold it’ll have on them – imagine staring up at a star filled sky with a magical melody playing in the background and you’ll be somewhere close to how this track made this reviewer feel (content and uplifted with a new sense of peace within herself and with the world) when she heard it.

While many bands and artists today might often seem in a hurry to release new material, at times long before it’s truly ready, with this album in particular Cohen has taken all the time he’s needed to perfect each track, as demonstrated by how he only gave each one a name once it was recorded and ready for the world to hear.  The end result is an album of complex, hybrid sounds that although due to several tracks being more than six minutes in length and therefore potentially off-putting to those more familiar with more radio friendly, three-minute music pieces, somehow come together and work in harmony to create what is easily Cohen’s best work yet.

∎ Rebecca Haslam, Stereo Stickman

(Rebecca Haslam is a music journalist, feature writer and editor based in the UK.)

Bruce Cohen is out with his brand new solo album Five BC.  You might know him as a part of the Philadelphia based band The Reds and with this record we get a closer look at the solo artist and the mindset of this artist.  I would dare to say that in many ways, this is an extension of his previous solo releases and with this record, it’s even more obvious that it’s the album as a whole that is in focus and not necessarily the different tracks on the record.

The album kicks off with track called Groovatronic.  This is a great introduction to the record and a clear indication of what’s to come.  The sound is complex in its simplicity, meaning that it may seem a bit “less is more.”  The cool thing is the elements that are not there.  The suggested sounds are created by the melody and space that lies between the sounds and the instruments.  I think this is an extraordinary production and the songwriting skills are impressive to say the least.

The whole album is easy on the ears.  It is well organized, it seems to be logical behind the track list and the production itself is spot on.  This is clearly an artist who had a vision and it seems to me like he hit a home run with this one.  More often than not, an artist will fight to get the vision out of his / her head and transfer it to paper or directly to a recording.  Five BC seems to be a 10 out of 10 record where everything just fell into place.  As a listener you can choose to just listen and enjoy or you can do what I did.  Try to listen to the whole story and the structure of the whole piece.

To be able to write something half descent about this record, I felt like I had to go back and listen to some of the other music Bruce Cohen has released over the years.  There is no doubt a connection between the various releases and in my book, Five BC is the best one yet.

Best track on the album: Requiem

I am a sucker for a great album-closer. This is probably one of the best ends of an album in the last decade or so.

∎ Act One Magazine, Denmark, 2019

A founding member of Philadelphia band The Reds, Bruce Cohen has a long and diverse musical career that extends through all manner of electronic ingenuity.  Since the dense electronic chaos of The Red’s self-titled debut, Cohen has become a wonderfully evolved artist, tying together the digital disarray of early work with a new penchant for calculated ambience and inspired funk.  It’s a hybrid sound that he has been cultivating since his debut solo work, One BC, and now with the release of his fifth solo excursion, Cohen has created his most complete work to date.

While Cohen’s previous album, 2017’s Four BC was a constrained four-minute per song experiment, Five BC arose from a far more organic process.  Each song was approached and recorded with no time limit and a total stream of conscience, with everything put into crafting and perfecting the sounds, to the point that even the titles were only added once the recording was complete.

The results are remarkable and instantly noticeable.  Built upon layers of progressive house grooves, atmospheric melodies, and tactile electronic notes, each song arrives as a demonstration of both control and spontaneity. Tracks such as Groovatronic and Kaiju take center stage, firing on all cylinders with their space-age grooves and rolling bass lines that undercut the levity of their production, while the likes of Requiem and Silence balance the album’s energy with gentler, classically electronic songs.

It’s an album that arrives through rolling waves of sound, giving something new with each repeat listen and ensuring that listeners of all backgrounds can find something to enjoy.  In that way, it’s easily Cohen’s most complete album to date, and one that’ll fit most, if not all moods.

∎ Broken 8, Sydney, Australia, 2019

“What Is It”

Bruce Cohen • Five BC • Track 8

WOW, I love this track!  The way the different melody lines flow together seamlessly offer up a decadence of grace that can be experienced by all five senses.  Flows brilliantly, great use of harmony, the melody trades off, the cadence trades off, the rhythm flows brilliantly, key signatures trade off, dynamics really flow together nicely, different instruments ebb and flow, the progression of this wonderful piece trades off, and basically all aspects of it flow together brilliantly.

∎ Mateo, Viral Sound, Vincenza, Italy