The Bran Flakes


The Bran Flakes are a Canadian-American indie pop group formed in Seattle in 1992. The group, whose line-up comprises Otis Fodder from Montreal, Quebec, and Mildred Pitt from Seattle, Washington, specializes in creating sound collages from pre-existing sources. Until 1997, they recorded on 4-track in bedrooms and did not play any shows, putting out hand dubbed cassette tapes and distributing tapes through direct mail-order, zines and indie catalogs.

Career

The Bran Flakes make extensive use of sampling, recontextualizing the samples into new works, often resulting in ironic statements about modern pop and media culture. The group scours thrift shops for obscure and quirky LPs; some of their songs also make use of recognizably famous basslines, television shows, and soundtracks from video games. The unauthorized nature of such sampling has prevented much of the band's work from official commercial release. However, they did contribute six tracks to the fully authorized Raymond Scott Rewired, an album of Scott remixes which was released in February 2014 on the Basta label.
Following the 1998 release of I Remember When I Break Down on Ovenguard Music, on which Otis Fodder was sole writer, the group's first album as a duo was in 1999, with Hey Won't Somebody Come and Play on Ovenguard Music. I Don't Have a Friend was released in 2001 on Lomo Records. Their 2002 album Bounces! was released on the band's own Happi Tyme Records, and contained one of their most popular songs; "Good Times a Goo Goo", which sampled extensively from Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear's performance of "Moving Right Along" from The Muppet Movie.
In 2008 the band signed with the label Illegal Art, known for such acts as Girl Talk and Steinski.

Personnel

Principal members
  • Otis Fodder
  • Mildred Pitt
Live show members
  • Courtney Barnebey
  • Peter Lynch
  • Julie Alpert
  • Joanna Barnebey
  • Pam Landinez

    Discography

The Bran Flakes have a discography consisting of seven studio albums, one remix album, one compilation album and two singles.

Studio albums

Remix albums

Compilation albums

Singles

Live performances

1998
1999
  • Meet the Sonicabal
  • Electromuse2 Festival
  • Art's Edge Festival
2000
2001
2002
  • Bounces! Release Party
  • Sonarchy
2003
2004
  • I.D.E.A.L. Festival
2005
2009
  • Sepomana Festival
2011
  • Convergence Festival
2012
  • ONN/OF Festival

    The Bran Flakes

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  • Band members

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Bran Flakes, The