Independent author Ryan Bracha has an alter-ego. His name is Disgraceful Friend and this alter-ego has just released a spunky second album, Craft Excluder. Slotting into a bookshelf laterally with Scroobius Pip, Sleaford Mods and sonically with Working Mens Club, the record is compiled of Bracha’s sarky spoken word nestled just under the surface of plentiful squelchy industrial beat soundscapes and electronic experimentalism. There’s loads to unpack here amongst the darkly funny verse and expertly produced rhythm, the yorkshireman’s topics of carefully crafted fascination aren’t overt, the words definitely feel like lyrics to music rather than a collection of sound-tracked poems and the beats are crazily comprehensive with unforgettable hooks that stand up all by themselves, but the subjects cover: aged dad dancing when you should know better (Snake Hips), the uncomfortable consequence of freedom of speech (The Tolerance Paradox), the subversive science of branding and persuasion (The Colour of Money) and the absolute shite that web browser pop ups cover your computer screen with (Pop-Up Pirate).
Fellow author Craig Furchtenicht delivers the saga of Gary and Kyle – on ‘Prettiest S.O.B. in the Room’ Gary is a narcissist whose father used to say he was pretty enough to be part of Hitler’s master-race, in a non-weird, non-creepy, non-white supremacist way, with an oversized and weird nemesis, Kyle who, on Motherfucker With A Gun, gets his long obsessed over revenge on the pretty son of a bitch, Gary, with a bloodbath shoot out in a retail store. ‘Fake Fake Fake’ is a 7 minute expression of expectation versus reality over a rotating beat that has already made it’s way to 6 Music on Tom Robinson’s Fresh on the Net mixtape and ‘I Don’t Like You’ confrontationally destroys the sentiment that all people have goodness in them somewhere at the same time as marvellously picking a fight with the listener, ending a reel of scenarios of human kindness with the sign off “others? I dunno, they’re just pricks. That’s where you come in. I don’t like you!”
The record is a collection of one Barnsley resident’s (and his friends’) observations on a rather pitiful modern world alchemically transformed into a danceable slinky electro creature of an LP.
Craft Excluder is out now to buy on Disgraceful Friend’s bandcamp on CD with an 8 page booklet and nifty artwork or on MP3. Click on the link to snap it up.
The album is also available to hear on Spotify. You can watch the video for Fake Fake Fake below: