by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

“If we’re dancing on the brink then we might as well make sure that the music is great.”

So reads the alarming and rather compelling sentence emphasising the point of Daniel Brandt’s Without Us album. Brandt began the record as an impassioned response to what he terms “the helplessness of the individual in the climate crisis and the apparent need to take radical global action to change the trajectory of the current threat of a climate disaster.”

What’s the music like?

Given the theme, it is not a surprise to report that Daniel Brandt’s music on Without Us is far from comfortable. He often veers between extremes, looking for comfort on one side while on the other realising that there is so little time left, it needs to be filled with music of the utmost urgency.

Paradise O.D. recognises this, taking shape quickly with a primal base to its bare rhythm and stripped back texture. Resistance follows the same outline, though under an ominous, synthesized cloud. Lucid does not stay true to its name, forms twisted beyond recognition as though wilting in a hot desert of inflamed temperatures. The fact Brandt wrote a good deal of this album in the Joshua Tree in California only adds to the atmosphere. PNK is a disquieting experience, with a lot of industrial activity taking place at a quick pace but with no apparent end goal other than to make people move quickly:

Yet there are moments of pure beauty to be found, too. Steady is an airy kickback, with some lovely open air textures given a freewheeling beat for company, while Soft Rains offers a comforting heat haze.

Does it all work?

Yes – on a brave and undeniably powerful album, Daniel Brandt hits the spot far more often than not.

Is it recommended?

It is. This is recognisably the work of a player from Brandt Brauer Frick, but Daniel Brandt has turned his beat making to serious means on this powerful piece of work. The importance of the dance is still there, but with the clock ticking there is an almost irresistible urgency to this music.

For fans of… Brandt Brauer Frick, Philip Glass, The Field, Pantha du Prince

Listen / Buy

For streaming and purchase details, Erased Tapes have a set of useful links

Published post no.2,487 – Friday 28 March 2025