Bleep

German electroacoustic master Daniel Brandt (of Brandt Brauer Frick trio) returns to the Erased Tapes label for his third solo LP entitled Without Us. Inspired in part by a distressing shop experience on tour in South London, Without Us explores the helplessness one feels in the grand scheme of the global climate crisis. Cut from sessions in Joshua Tree, London, and Berlin, Brandt explores the heady theme of personal responsibility in spite of corporate apathy, or really, outright animosity with music that feels both harsh and nihilistic, and yet strangely hopeful. A self-described “apocalyptic rave”, tracks like the trance-y ‘Soft Rain’ do indeed flirt with the hedonistic rush of rave, but Brandt stretches those motifs into thrillingly alien shapes.