BRADY COHAN - Wash
Brady Cohan's music is as intimate as it is brutalist, as rooted in experimentation as it is in pop structures, and as influenced by classical music as it is shoegaze. His deconstructionist approach to the guitar yields textures that slowly unveil themselves, gradually unfolding over time and coalescing into giant, visceral, other-worldly structures. Although aesthetically akin to ambient music, Cohan’s work is anything but static; instead, it inhabits a vast dynamic range and exhibits a deftness for form and dramatic shape.
From Brady Cohan
The music for Wash was conceived after having read a film script that was sent to me in 2020, right before the pandemic. The story takes place in an alternate timeline, slightly in the future, where it’s possible to bring back to life deceased loved ones in the form of highly advanced robotic replicas. In essence, it’s a story about loneliness and grief, where the lines between humanity and technology are almost indiscernible. Not only was I moved by the script, but I felt like my musical practices would be a natural fit to support these themes in the story. Much of my process is rooted in the abstraction of source material; a blurring of the lines between human-made and machine-made elements, where it’s unclear where one ends and the other begins. Untitled 1 (theme for a film) and Untitled 2 (theme for a film) were part of the original suite that I wrote for the director after having first read the script. Both feature Noah Hoffeld on cello (who features heavily throughout the album) accompanied by tape loops and modular synthesizers. Although the film was never fully realized, I felt compelled to continue exploring and developing these musical ideas and aesthetics. This album is the result of that work. In addition to Hoffeld, the album features performances by Bryan Senti on violin and Nadia Sirota on viola.
“[An] elegant, dreamlike haze… like that nowhere land between awakeness and sleep” - CLOT Magazine
“Glowing with a 4th world optimism and woozy, Cali-grade warmth, the 2nd of Cohan’s ‘Studies’ distill his practice in film scores, and as part of the downtown jazz scene, in a handful of sublime works that feel like an etheric extension of the Brainfeeder sound. Rising star of the LA jazz circuit Sam Gendel lends his smeared sax tones to the EP’s deliciously mellow highlight ‘Begin Again’, but the rest is all Cohan’s work, calmly drifting from the lilting plucks of ‘Rally’ thru the more frayed textures of ‘capitOl pt. 1’ and smoked out haptics of its pt. 2, and comms to pool his rustling energies in the feint harmonic shimmer and hypnagogic slowness of ‘Future’, which feels kinda like a Jim O’Rourke aside.” - BOOMKAT
“…Brady Cohan also hails from LA, and though he spends most of his time in the city’s jazz circuit, his debut EP, Studies, Vol. 1, ventures into more ambient / experimental territory. “Oliver and Me” begins with gentle melodies and lightly strummed guitar, but quickly builds into a whirling tempest of sound and static before retreating back into the ether. ” - SHAWN REYNALDO First Floor #62
Biography
Brady Cohan is a composer, recording artist, and guitarist based in Los Angeles whose work inhabits multiple creative worlds. In 2020, Cohan released his solo debut on the UK experimental label, Phantom Limb, entitled Studies, Vol. 1. The ep, featuring collaborations with Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes, was the first in a series of three ep’s that were released on the label to critical acclaim. As a film composer, his music can be heard on such projects as Fire Country (CBS), Outer Banks (Netflix), Tales of the Walking Dead (AMC Networks), Good Girls (NBC), and Chee and T (winner of the Grand Jury Prize for comedy at the LA Film Festival). He works alongside decorated score composers Fil Eisler and Lyle Workman. His work as a guitarist is equally diverse, having toured the world with such luminaries as Stanley Clarke, Natalie Cole, Stewart Copeland, and Queen Latifiah, as well as being a session guitarist in some of the biggest house bands on television including American Idol and Dancing With the Stars.
