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Brannten Schnüre, "Sommer im Pfirsichhain"
Perpetual frontrunners Natural Snow Buildings and My Cat is an Alien aside, the single most unique and transcendental album of 2015 was this full-length debut from Würzburg-based experimental folk duo Brannten Schnüre.  While previous releases were primarily focused upon crackling, ritualistic-sounding, and eerily beautiful abstract collages, Sommer im Pfirsichhain (Summer in Peach Grove) takes Christian Schoppik's "German hauntology" aesthetic to a whole new plane, sounding like nothing less than the ghost of a lovesick Weimar Republic busker who happened upon an accordion, an out-of-tune violin, and a battered four-track in the spirit world and somehow managed to mail the resultant album to the Aguirre office in Belgium.  As if that were not enough, Sommer improves upon that already appealing description by balancing its more macabre and experimental tendencies with an unexpected warmth, sweetness, and innocence.
Christian Schoppik's Brannten Schnüre project first surfaced with a now impossible to find split release in 2011 on Germany’s SicSic cassette label.  The excellent Aprilnacht tape then appeared on the same label in 2014 and earned Schoppik a bit more well-deserved attention, as his surreal loop collages of weathered traditional folk and classical music samples, melancholy accordion, enigmatic dialogue, and lilting, half-sung German vocals were both beautifully constructed, wonderfully otherworldly, and completely unstuck in time.  It seemed like a perfect and fully formed aesthetic, so his decision to expand into a duo with vocalist Katie Rich and transition from loop-based soundscapes into actual songs for this latest album was quite an unexpected and bold one.  It seems to have worked brilliantly, however, as everything that made Aprilnacht so singular is still more or less intact, but Schoppik has found a way to transform that vision into something a bit more melodic, tender, and memorable.
The transformation was not a complete one, however, as Rich's haunting ballads are still interspersed with a number of more drone-based pieces that would not have been at all out of place on Aprilnacht.  Schoppik excels equally at the two veins and they balance each other nicely, even if the vocal pieces tend to be the ones that stick in my head a bit longer.  Among the instrumental pieces, the opening "Vom Baum im Hof" probably stands out the most, as a languorous melody unfolds over a sensuous bed of churning and bleary strings as floating synth tones flutter and bleed together in the periphery.  It is followed by one of Rich's lovely and melancholy accordion ballads ("Schweiβ"), which is ingeniously made surreal and ghostly with the addition of quivering string stabs and deep, bleary, and ominous horns.  "Feldweg," on the other hand, is such a perfectly eerie song that it does not need much more than a simple guitar arpeggio and Rich's vocals to cast a sublimely, mesmerizing spell (though it does benefit from some nice additional touches, like a bittersweet accordion melody, washes of guitar shimmer, and high-pitched backing vocals that sound like a chorus of ghost puppets).  Later in the album, "Brüderchen und Schwesterchen" manages to hit the wonderful place where the two strains of Schoppik's vision intersect, as corroded loops of undulating accordion arpeggios steadily grow in power while Rich seems to be distractedly half-singing by herself in another reality altogether.  The rattling and undulating beauty of "Nachmittagsschwüle" is likely the album's zenith, however, sounding like an epic tour de force of heartache, mourning, and occult nocturnal ritual condensed into just three perfect minutes.
There is an enormous amount to like about Sommer, so it is difficult to think of any real flaws other than the inclusion of a few instrumentals that are not quite as strong as the material surrounding them ("Lichter am Weiher" and "Mithra im Jardin Botanique").  That minor quibble ("why isn’t the album absolutely perfect?!?") is naturally eclipsed by the many ways in which Sommer is truly wonderful and utterly mesmerizing.  Great melodies and excellent songwriting aside, Brannten Schüre excel the most at the more intangible and fundamental things, such as lightness of touch, use of space, dynamics, sequencing, and texture.  In particular, I was most struck by how effectively Rich and Schoppik maintained a spell of bittersweet, mysterious beauty without ever erring into oppressive sadness.  Schoppik's talent for texture deserves a special mention as well, as Sommer's half-dream/half-nightmare spell would not be nearly as effective if the various instruments were not all frayed, rusted, submerged, or shrouded in audio fog. Sommer im Pfirsichhein so effectively creates its own little dream world that it feels like gazing into an extremely lovely and elaborate version of whatever the summer equivalent of a snowglobe would be, then noticing all kinds of disconcerting little details amidst all the beautiful seaside houses and picturesque tree-lined streets, like menacing shadows; a haunted-looking, hollow-eyed child; a body hanging from a tree; or a large rotting animal carcass on a perfectly manicured lawn.  In short, exactly the sort of thing that I love.  This album is absolutely stellar.
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