Bömmer : Drift/Listen/Lucky

For a record that oozes melancholia, desperation and negativity, Bömmer’s EP ‘Drift/Listen/Lucky’ is surprisingly rich. Instead of making music that’s just as bare and open as the heart-on-sleeve lyrics, it’s filled with textures like the woodblock rhythms at the end of opening track “Drift” or the beautiful guitar work on the following track, “Listen.”
But this doesn’t necessarily mean Bömmer can’t venture down the valley of gothic minimalism without great success. In contrast to the up-beat characteristics of “Drift” and “Listen,” the EP’s closing track, “Lucky,” has a crawling and patient backbeat. While Bömmer lacks layers of sound here, it captures the grandiosity shown previously, using repetition and the human voice to great effect.
Finally Bömmer may be tapping into a certain bygone era in music, but there’s nothing to suggest regression or an attempt to capture something specific. This is instead a continuation in the gothic, post-punk tradition, not an attempt to reiterate it.