Gespensterland

Over the last ten years a strange mycelium was sprouting from the ground of Germany's sound topography, going widely unnoticed while creeping its way up through the copse of the ubiquitous Neo-Kraut, Diskurs-Pop and the like. We're talking about a small underground network of artists and projects with poetic, mysterious names such as Brannten Schnure, Baldruin, Kirschstein, Freundliche Kreisel and Balint Brosel.

Operating in the margins and intersections of folklore, experimental electronics, dreams and nightmares, the Gespensterland LP archives and compiles their magic works for the very first time and already today it stands as a contemporary testament with an auratic presence comparable to that of Pordenone's Great Complotto.

Deutschland - Gespensterland: they're lurking in each and every crack of a brittle reality, amongst the concrete of apartment blocks and motorway bridges, twixt and tween the shopping mall and the leisure park, they're floating along gap sites and post-war facades, apricating in the ludicrous snobbery of Germany's suburbia, whispering from behind crammed sheds in a labyrinth of allotments.

Gossamer ghosts spun from daily rituals, spectres of a mundane here and now, that suffuse the land with an invisible veiling. Hardly ever have their frequencies been transmitted as unadulterated as on this record. Much like the fever dream imagery of gothic novels and early horror flicks has equipped our senses with a new perception of reality itself, Gespensterland's surreal songs and oblique sound textures yield an array of microscopic reflections and deeper insights into the psychogeography of the land.

Raised in Lower Franconia, both Baldruin and Brannten Schnure already have a considerable discography under their belt. A string of vinyl and cassette releases issued in lovingly designed small runs contributed to their underground fame, securing them a distinguished but growing cult following, especially abroad.

Due to their rather brief or latent existence, the legacy of Balint Brosel and Kirschstein, hailing from the Ruhr area, however is of a more obscure nature. Hence, it's all the more important that their fascinating and idiosyncratic skein of ghost musick is being documented here as well, emerging like a seldom ore that slumbered too long inside the earth, having accumulated the collective dreams of generations of necromancers.

Ghost stories, both uncanny and hilarious, are likewise the main ingredient of Freundliche Kreisel's songs, a joint project of Brannten Schnure and Baldruin, and as with all material on this record these tracks have been unreleased to date.

Tracklisting
01. Freundliche Kreisel - Gespensterland
02. Kirschstein - Komet uber Sch(r)attenberg
03. Baldruin - Reich der Illusionen
04. Kirschstein - Ach, Du grobe Nachtmusik
05. Freundliche Kreisel - Abbild
06. Baldruin - Elektrische Krauter
07. Kirschstein - Futura Narkotica
08. Brannten Schnure - Ich versaum' doch ni