Inexplicably, within the realms of underground and experimental music - often heavily focused around the output from cities like New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo - it’s often the far flung places and second cities, free of prying eyes - where the most interesting work takes seed. This is certainly the case when it comes to Brannten Schnüre, the duo of Christian Schoppik and Katie Rich, who have been steadily issuing a singular body of recordings for more than a decade from their home in Würzburg, Germany. A swirling hybrid of dark folk, musique concrète, ambient music, and electroacoustic wizardly, their last LP - 2022’s “Das Glück Vermeiden”, sent listeners into a frenzy and sold out in a flash, becoming one of the most talked about records of that year. While we’re still waiting for the group’s next outing, Aguirre has returned with the first ever vinyl pressing of their 2014 full-length, “Aprilnacht”, originally released on cassette by SicSic. Heavily rooted in vocalisations by Schoppik, prior to Rich taking over the role in the project, it’s a stunningly delicate excursion into bristling experimental temperaments that ride the razor's edge between abstraction and song.

First emerging during the early 2010s, Brannten Schnüre began as a solo side-project for Christian Schoppik, before inviting Katie Rich onboard, with who he has also worked in a variety of noteworthy projects like Agnes Beil, Diamantener Oberhof, and Freundliche Kreisel. Based in the small Bavarian city of Würzburg, over the project’s duration, it has been slowly developing a unique sound resting within an ethereal realm that intertwines folk, ambient, and electroacoustic music, rooted in narrative conceptualism, that can only be described as intoxicatingly beautiful. While 2014’s “Aprilnacht” predates Bell’s joining, the album already encounters the project in the midst of developing this incredibly singular sonic world, conjuring a remarkable depth of meaning through the use and manipulation of samples and sound fragments drawn from a vast range of sources.

Comprising eleven, fairly short-form tracks, “Aprilnacht” is a striking use of the strategies and techniques of musique concrète to sculpt dream and nostalgia laden ambiences and flirtations with experimental song craft, rendering stunningly rich expanses of texture and totality that occupy a futuristic envisioning of far-gone pasts. Imbued with emotional turmoil, meandering through vulnerable and catastrophic episodes - recalling aspects of Coil, Ghédalia Tazartès', and balladic folk traditions from across the globe - whether viewed collectively or within its more discreet moments, the album is an ethereal and enthralling manifestation of delicate murmurations, culminating as an inwardly focused ritual through sound.

Creatively brilliant and knotted with tension and striking beauty, across its eleven compositions Brannten Schnüre’s “Aprilnacht” takes us back to the roots of the world that became so celebrated with “Das Glück Vermeiden”, reminding us of how fantastic this project was from the start. Issued as stunning, first-time vinyl edition by Aguirre, it’s sure to fly so don’t sleep!