On their ninth album for Bureau B, the internationally renowned Berlin/Düsseldorf-based outfit Kreidler focus on atmospheric soundscapes – of course maintaining their signature rhythmic groove, which on „Schemes“ is simply more buoyant and less insistent. Schemes is also characterised by the more pronounced use of nature/outdoor recordings. The track featuring Leo Garcia as a guest vocalist is based on just such a field recording. With „Schemes“, Kreidler step into a more ambient space of possibilities, crafting an album that feels both carefully considered and delightfully unguarded.
Die Wilde Jagd is the music project of producer and songwriter Sebastian Lee Philipp, who for over a decade has been working on a layered form of avant-pop that has long since attracted international attention. With minimalist, dark intensity, Die Wilde Jagd weaves a dense and atmospheric fabric of drama, romanticism, ecstasy and melancholia. The project has released five studio albums and several EPs, followed by numerous international tours and concerts. The most recent work, Lux Tenera – A Rite to Joy, a commission by the Roadburn Festival, was created in collaboration with the Grammy-winning Metropole Orkest. In Hamburg, Die Wilde Jagd presents a special club set as a duo with live drums, focusing on material from the first two albums.
Kreidler
From the first moments, „Schemes“ signals a shift in tactics. Where other Kreidler recordings often move with propellent insistence, here motion feels lighter on its feet. Rhythms skip rather than stride. Synth lines meander, overlap, or gently collide. The music seems less determined to arrive somewhere; more curious to discover new places along the way. The title hints at design, but the album delights in unravelling rigidity. If a scheme is a plan, here it is a starting point rather than a set of orders. Structures are sketched lightly, leaving an ample margin for chance. The effect is playful without being restless. There is a subtle humour running through „Schemes“. Less in the form of overt gestures, but in the mischief of its arrangements. The trio of Thomas Klein (percussion, drums, found sounds), Alexander Paulick (fretless bass guitar) and Andreas Reihse (synthesisers, electronics, field recordings) set up in Berlin for the sessions – initially at Morphine Raum on the sideline of public performances. But the bulk of the recording took place more privately, at andereBaustelle. Here the group made good use of various instruments and objects discovered onsite – most notably a gigantic cuboid steel oil tank. Schemes reflects this spontaneity, with the impulses developed primarily in situ.
Die Wilde Jagd
For eight years now, songwriter and producer Sebastian Lee Philipp has been steering his project Die Wilde Jagd through the field of tension between contemporary electronic music and avant-pop. Between 2015 and 2020, three studio albums were produced as documents of Philipp's rigorous musical creativity. Most recently, «Atem», a composition for Roadburn Festival, was released in 2022, documenting yet another, more experimental side of the project. On the new, eagerly awaited fourth album, all these multi-faceted worlds are brought together in an impressive way.
«Ophio, Ophio» you say. Lies in the end of you Still the best ahead of me?
With these lines from the title track, Sebastian Lee Philipp poses the question that spans over the entire album ophio like a parenthesis. The work entitled «ophio» tells of constant transformation, the blurring of beginning, end, and the various dimensions in between. «It's about the constant unfolding of the self, about the seductive forces of life, an ode to existence and the transformation to happiness.» Says Philipp himself about his conceptual direction of the album. The meandering between leaving behind and starting anew is not only found in the lyrics, but also in the music itself. The production seems more consistent than ever before, stripping away all frills and trinkets, like a skin that has become too tight. The compositions form a concentrate in which every single sound finds its space. In a certain sense, it's like listening to an introspection in which the bundled voices become a single, demanding murmur that is both drone and whisper in equal measure.
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