Läuten der Seele is a plunderphonics project by Christian Schoppik of Brannten Schnüre, who merges his penchant for neofolk moods with a collage approach reminiscent of Black to Comm or Sewer Election – if those projects shared Wolfgang Voigt’s fascination with German forests and symphonic music. After five acclaimed solo albums, he teams up with Roudi Vagou – fellow German Matthias Kremsreiter, a.k.a. alibikonkret, a self-declared «autodidactic sound designer» – for a split release featuring 16 short pieces. Already in the opening seconds of Taghelle Nacht, it becomes clear that Kremsreiter and Schoppik are kindred spirits.
More frankly speaking, there is little that sets them apart. Kremsreiter employs similar techniques, using tape loops and samples to create a dense sonic fog through which disembodied voices drift, while at times an instrument assumes the lead. More than Schoppik, he seems interested in blending the electronic and the acoustic, weaving naive melodies together with ominous textures – at its best, it sounds like a teenager in the early 1980s attempting to recreate Popol Vuh in a bedroom studio. As if to offset this resemblance, Schoppik opts for more abrasive and abstract sounds – these rank among his moodiest pieces to date.
While the title of Taghelle Nacht suggests duality or contrast, the music feels somewhat uniform in its attempt to be both whimsical and melancholic. Nevertheless, it succeeds as a wonderfully strange echo of hauntology’s heyday, unfolding across 16 fragments.
