Our 42nd exclusive FACT mix is the work of Bronnt Industries Kapital.

B.I.K. is the project of Guy ‘Bronnt’ Bartell, a Bristol-basedproducer/multi-instrumentalist who was paying homage to krautrock andthe schlocky, lo-fi synth-odysseys of Goblin and John Carpenter soundtracksway, way before the hipsters moved in. You may be familiar with hisdebut UntitledEP (Silent Age, 2002) or, more likely, his releases on the impossibleto pigeonhole Static Caravan imprint – including the lathe-cut’Brocken’ 7″ and the beautifully textured Virtute et Industriaalbum. In 2002 Bronnt consummated his lifelong love of occult moviemusic, providing an original soundtrack for the Tartan DVD release for Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages, Benjamin Christensen’s sublime and unsettling silent film of 1922.

Hard For Justice is Bronnt Industries Kapital’s most fullyrealized album to date, a set of unapologetically hi-NRGanalogue synth instrumentals inspired by italo, proto-electro andlong-forgotten cinema, “an era of psychotronic exploitation,Italo-crime and no-budget action thrillers such as The Beyond, Deadbeatat Dawn and Profondo Rosso“. It features three tracks co-written withWarp Records’ Gravenhurst and is really fucking addictive.Intriguingly, it’s being released by Berlin’s Get Physical, a labelbest known for the sleek, anthemic tech-house confections of its coreartists Booka Shade and M.A.N.D.Y. Though not the most obvious hook-up,it should at least find Bronnt’s music getting some of the widerrecognition it richly deserves. Homegrown weirdoes like this guy shouldbe cherished and nurtured, don’t you think?

Hard For Justice is out now; the tracklist is below, followed by Q&A with Bronnt.

1. Mark Lindsay & W. Michael Lewis – Dune

2. Yellow Magic Orchestra – Rydeen

3. Jeff Wayne – The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine (excerpt)

4. Bixio/Frizzi/Tempera – Nucleo Antirapina

5. Harold Oblong – Somebody Super Like You

6. Ennio Morricone – Magic & Ecstacy

7. Goblin – Deep Shadows (part 1)

8. Amon Duul II – Another Morning

9. Cybotron – Clear

10. Trans Am – Molecules

11. Crazy Gang – Every Sunday

12. Todd Rundgren – Zen Archer

Who or what is Bronnt Industries Kapital?

“Bronnt is an organisation of which I am the principle employee, originally set up as a tax-dodge for a European industrialist who will, I am afraid, have to remain nameless.”

Tell us about the mix you’ve recorded for FACT…

“It’s music for a psychotronic body workout, allowing you to induce maximal muscle contraction while enjoying the glorious sounds of marginal movie soundtracks and crucial electro, helping prevent the inevitable burnout caused by overtraining.”

There’s a focus on synthesizer music from the 70s and 80s. What appeals to you about this era / aesthetic?

“Kosmische Musik, with its emphasis on blending live instruments with more synthetic elements, was definitely key in the production of this record [Hard For Justice] – many of the tracks aim to compress this world of extended, improvised partials into taut, compressed wholes.”

How would you say Hard For Justice differs from your previous work, particularly Virtute et Industria?

“Virtute et Industria is willowy and nebulous, to Hard for Justice’s svelte and focussed physique – it’s muscular and compact. Like corned beef.”

It’s something of a surprise that you’re releasing the new album on Get Physical. How did that relationship come about?

“Through a convoluted chain of underhand Masonic meddling and fraternal favours.”

Tell us about your work on the Haxan score…

“The Haxan soundtrack comprises the second Bronnt album, and work on the score overlapped with both the writing of the debut album and this latest one, so there is much of the spectral, Victorian sound of Virtute et Industria, although fortunately for the film, less of the Hi-NRG Kraut-Disco of Hard for Justice. It was composed and recorded entirely at night, and features a lot more live instruments than the debut. Performing it live has been a great pleasure – I’ve been lucky enough to have taken it to Sweden to be performed in an enormous medieval castle, and played it for Julian Cope in support of one of his lectures on ‘older gods’.”

Are you still based in Bristol? How would you say the city impacts on your music and your attitudes to life?

“Bristol was definitely a big influence on the mood of the first Bronnt album; a city with a murky, dubious past lingering in the striking Georgian facades. It’s a city in which experimentation and a DIY ethic flourishes, which Bronnt definitely could not have existed without.”

Vintage cinema is obviously a big influence on what you do. Can you recommend a few outre Bronnt classics that we should see before we die?

“Many of the films that influenced Hard for Justice aren’t necessarily ones that you could lose sleep over not having seen. One would find it hard to defend Jim Van Bebber’s low-budget ass-kicking gangland horror Deadbeat at Dawn against the metaphysical epics of Tarkovsky.”

What’s your favourite original film score?

“The most effective film scores are ones that you barely notice, so are possibly not the best candidates for listening to outside the context of the film. Some of my personal favourite soundtracks actually appear quite incongruous as film scores – many 70s and 80s Italian directors seemed intent on scoring scenes of suspense and gore with funky, party-time progressive rock and disco. I’m very fond of the soundtrack to The Beyond, by the masterful Fabio Frizzi, who manages to coax a world of suspense and pathos out of a handful of brilliant motifs.”

What’s next for Bronnt Industries Kapital?

“To retain Bronnt’s position at the vanguard of emerging markets, the next album will be comprised solely of the most painfully fashionable areas of popular music, and to this end will feature Italo-flavoured Wobblestep played on a Nintendo DS by a troupe of early twenties American starlets in leotards. Doing poppers. On a yacht. In space.”

Bronnt Industries Kapital’s Hard For Justice is out now on Get Physical