Brannten Schnüre - Landschaft aus Tränen

Brannten Schnüre
Landschaft aus Tränen
Quirlschlängle
Germany, 2025
LP

INCREDIBLE. This is reportedly the last Brannten Schnüre record, and I have to say their best. Landschaft aus Tränen consolidates Christian Schoppik and Katie Rich's considerable & very idiosyncratic gifts. The songs are sharper, the sequencing is brilliant, and the dream logic is dreamier than ever as one thing melts into the next. Just check the opening few minutes, in which bare spoken word gives way to cinematic orchestration, swelling with Badalamenti levels of dread & emotion before dissolving into a restrained acoustic strum. It's an exhilarating opening gambit that sets the pattern for the record, alternating between cracked orchestral loops and the duo's hauntingly beautiful dark fairytale folk tunes.

All in all, a worthy capstone to one of the definitive underground projects of this decade, which has been an unexpected high-water mark in the history of underground music. This is not only one of the very best albums of the year: it's the kind of record folks like me will lose their shit over fifty years from now, as enchanting as it is unlikely, entrancing & unmoored from time.