Changing languages can change everything, absolutely everything. Sarah Connor, for example, has become a kind of woken hit hope since she sings in German instead of English. Charlotte Brandi, on the other hand, a Berliner from the Ruhr area, has gone from being a valued indie pop musician to one of the most exciting musicians in the country. Brandi became known in the 1990s as the singer of the English-language, theatrical pop duo Me And My Drummer. After the band broke up, she continued solo, apparently searching and groping, but in truth: constantly surpassing herself.
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What grew there was a wondrous growth. Her first EP “An das Angstland” recorded in German with the eerie, enchanting brooding and mourning love song “Wind”, assisted by Dirk von Lowtzow, set the tone for what was to come a good year ago: music, who is now standing around in the German pop landscape at the same time crooked and strange and exuberantly self-confident. With the album AN DEN NIGHTTRAUM, Brandi creates what singers like Michaela Meise or Stella Sommer have recently done: an update of elegant, German-speaking pop art beyond the demonstrative shirt-sleeves of the usual German poet music that clogs the charts.
Despite the sophistication of the songs, Brandi retains a lightness that sometimes feels almost inappropriate
Stella Sommer actually stops by for the song “Vom Losen”, to which you want to walk whistling through avenues in space, and sings in the most beautiful contrast to the hostess. Unlike the darkly phrasing Sommer, Brandi tells her small, large, and always well-observed stories with a clear, sometimes almost Kate-Bush-trained intonation: stories about filthy money, about funny Austrians and the beautiful Lukas, whose news you waited for far too often has. The accompanying music floats, lurches and creeps around between art song and cloud-covered, bright white glowing pop with a small choir and orchestra in the vest pocket.
Despite the sophistication of the songs, Brandi retains a lightness that sometimes feels almost inappropriate given her themes. Because behind the moodiness and gentleness there is often something unfathomable and dark lurking. Even the opener “Der Ekel” is a sublime song about the abysses of misogyny. In general, themes like power and empowerment haunt this album – which, by the way, was recorded and produced male-free with a full FLINTA line-up – like ghosts: sometimes funny, sometimes scary.
In the wonderful guitar piece “Todesangst”, which in between is allowed to drown in gray noise, Brandi sings about existential panic in an almost lullaby-like comfort. Her words are both irritatingly precise and enigmatic at the same time, worlds open up between her lines – if you listen closely, you can almost hear through the beautiful fog of synthesizers and tropical brass and Uuuuh-huuuu-huuuus. Perhaps these clever ghost chansons are not for Antenne Bayern. They are always amazing.
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“Frau” is the fourth single from Brandi’s first German-language album. AN DEN NIGHTTRAUM is scheduled to be released in February 2023 and was recorded exclusively with so-called FLINTA*.
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