Spurensicherung: Läuten der Seele on Hands in the Dark

 

Behind the mysterious name 'Läuten der Seele' comes the eponymous solo debut-album from Christian Schoppik, half of the confidentially acclaimed experimental dark folk duo Brannten Schnüre from Würzburg (DE). 

The record is composed of 12 abstract audio collages based on transformed sampled loops from German 50’s Heimatfilme features -a popular domestic genre involving rural settings, romantic tone and simplistic morality, centered on love, friendship and family- jazzed up with a vast selection of instruments such as accordion, guitar, keyboard, flute and everyday objects sporadically used as percussive elements. 

 

Schoppik’s new offering is a surreal -at times epic- and deep listening adventure into half dream/half nightmare atmospheres of nostalgia and bittersweetness, supported by masterfully crafted experimental songwriting and sonic aesthetic. 

 

All tracks by Christian Schoppik 

Mastering & Cutting by Frédéric Alstadt 

Artwork by Nick Mott 

Layout by Johannes Schebler 

out February 11, 2022 in a limited edition of 200 copies on black vinyl

Spurensicherung: Freundliche Kreisel LP on Stroom

FREUNDLICHE KREISEL - FREUNDLICHE KREISEL (STRLP-057)

"Emerging from Lower Franconia's hidden reverse, Johannes Schebler, known as ambient-poltergeist "Baldruin" and surreal folklorists Christian Schoppik & Katie Rich of "Brannten Schnüre"-fame have puzzled and amazed outernational audiences from the stranger end of the avant/lo-fi spectrum in recent years. The trio is now collectively dreaming as "Freundliche Kreisel", reaching for terra incognita rather than common ground on their most bewildering and accessible outing to date. Arch-pontifices of the electro-acoustic and outsider-art realm, they fill in gaps and invent missing links on the go with somnambulistic ease, confusing the hypersensitive and hyaline timbres of contempo-electronic aesthetics with the naïve charm of Germany's obscure Kassettentäter and mutant-NDW.

Think Daniele Mana and Lorenzo Senni digitally rewiring the 4-track recordings of Gareth Williams' Flaming Tunes or sometimes, much scarier, it feels as if it's the other way round. There certainly is an air of whimsical yet post-ironic romanticism to the songs contained here, a madcap, tongue-in-cheek ghost story as filtered through the transcendental senses of a childhood perspective. This attitude is best personified in the disarming innocence of Katie's vocals whose intonation touches on nursery rhymes as much as on dirges and bizarre 'schlager' kitsch.

Heirs to the tradition of magic realism, examining fragments of an arcane sacred mundanity like a crack in the concrete of everyday life, Freundliche Kreisel dwell on this often neglected microcosmic topography, yielding an adventurous and visionary piece of a decidedly Franconian next-level post-modern folklore."

 

Voice by Katie Rich

Accordion, Voice, Sampling & other instruments by Christian Schoppik

Electronics, acoustic instruments & Sampling by Johannes Schebler

Clarinet on Peinlich played by Karoline Mehlig

All Words by Christian Schoppik

Artwork by Victor Verhelst

Mastered by Mathieu Savenay