The bruleed baked oatmeal recipe Kasey is featuring on eating/sf today is a new favorite breakfast treat. The crisp, sugary crust pairs fantastically with the soft, almost custardy oatmeal underneath. It is a tasty, gratifying recipe that you’ll want to savor. I did. And, as the name implies, it is the filling breakfast equivalent of creme brulee. Who could argue with something as awesome as that? And Electric President‘s latest album the Violent Blue is my selection for an awesome pairing for this recipe. Electric President is the Jacksonville, Florida duo of Ben Cooper and Alex Kane. The Violent Blue is the duo’s third album, and their first stateside release on the Fake Four Inc. label. Rock-rooted but enhanced with lo-fi electronic elements, The Violent Blue is a beautiful, vast and pleasantly droning album inspired sonically by the sea. It is as exciting and gratifying as today’s featured recipe.
The Violent Blue also pairs well with today’s recipe in part because of Cooper’s vocals. Specifically, Cooper’s sincere vocal delivery has a somewhat brittle quality to it, especially on the album’s first two tracks (“The Ocean Floor” and “Mr. Gone”), that sounds like if it were pierced, it would split into shards like the hard caramelized layer of a brulee to reveal greater reserves of warmth and comfort laying in wait underneath. Indeed, Cooper’s vocals emerge on the album’s third track “Safe and Sound” to reveal that very comforting upper-register glow that lays beneath his quieter moments. Similarly, the album’s compositions increasingly unfurl as the album progresses – increasingly incorporating electronic flourishes to stand hand-and-hand alongside the more traditional rock elements. For example, where the backbone of album opener “The Ocean Floor” is primarily based on piano and acoustic guitar, the album’s fifth and sixth tracks (“Nightmare No. 5 or 6” and “The Violent Blue”) are more heavily and noticeably enhanced by synthesizers and sonic textures developed through samples of “glitchy organic found sounds.” Likewise, the distorted and manipulated sounds that compromise the instrumentation of “Circles” rely even more heavily on electronically produced percussion and swirling synths. Nonetheless, despite those elements, like the ocean that inspired it – the album continues to feel natural, encompassing, and alternatively threatening and comforting. This album is definitely worth spending some time with. Get it at Insound.
Electric President – Safe and Sound
Head back to eating/sf to read the recipe for Kasey’s bruleed baked oatmeal.
