Brannten Schnüre close the book on one of the most intriguing stories of the 21st century underground with Landschaft aus Tränen, their tenth(?) and final record, itself representing the completion of a smaller internal cycle of the three-album trilogy that began in 2019 with Erinnerungen an Gesichter, and continued with Das Glück Vermeiden in 2022. Why the pair are choosing to end it here is characteristically unclear, though the body of work they leave behind is rich with a self-contained lucidity that's plentiful in its mystery - the less you know, the greater the desire to dig in, and learning the lexicon they've created doesn't help untangle the confusing web of understanding, beauty and truth that seems to hang over all of their music. Nonetheless, Landschaft aus Tränen certainly offers new angles of entry to a catalogue of work defined by its implacability. Given collage and layered sampling have been a defining trait of much of the duo's work, it's interesting that this final record is noticeably less dense in presentation, Katie Rich's vocal relatively unadorned and clear, the music-box arrangements around it more naked and folk-inclined than ever (even if that is a term the group mostly seem to reject). Little, if anything, of what Brannten Schnüre does appears accidental, making this subtle shift feel ever-more significant, as if precipitating a partial lifting of the veil or clearing of the fog. If that is the case, the question, then, is what does it reveal? It's still murky out there, though the feelings are real. There is a German term that describes the Brannten Schnüre aesthetic almost too well - weltschmerz, translating as 'world-pain', details the sense of impossibility of existing in the world, a kind of ineffable melancholia in the face of it all. In one sense, it's a deeply depressing notion, but on closer examination it also reveals a profound romanticism, of desire outstripping the possibilities of reality, the want for something... else, if not better. It's a concept that could be seen as central to Landschaft aus Tränen, an overtly sad sounding record existent with an overtly sad sounding oeuvre that effectively functions as an elegy for the group - the clue is in the title, meaning 'landscape of tears', as good a descriptor of the Brannten Schnüre aesthetic as anything else I've heard written or said. Poets to the last, romantic and doomed. And so this is the last we'll hear of Brannten Schnüre. Don't be sad it's over. Be happy it was there to make you feel sad while it existed.
FFO: Beequeen, Lauten der Seele, Vox Populi, Svitlana Nianio, Enhet For Fri Musik, Nocturnal Emissions
