Die Wilde Jagd

For eight years now, songwriter and producer Sebastian Lee Philipp has been steering his project Die Wilde Jagd through the field of tension between contemporary electronic music and avant-pop. Between 2015 and 2020, three studio albums were produced as documents of Philipp's rigorous musical creativity. Most recently, "Atem", a composition for Roadburn Festival, was released in 2022, documenting yet another, more experimental side of the project. On the new, eagerly awaited fourth album, all these multi-faceted worlds are brought together in an impressive way.

"Ophio, Ophio" you say.
Lies in the end of you
Still the best ahead of me?

With these lines from the title track, Sebastian Lee Philipp poses the question that spans over the entire album like a parenthesis. The work entitled "ophio" tells of constant transformation, the blurring of beginning, end, and the various dimensions in between. "It's about the constant unfolding of the self, about the seductive forces of life, an ode to existence and the transformation to happiness." Says Philipp himself about his conceptual direction of the album.

The meandering between leaving behind and starting anew is not only found in the lyrics, but also in the music itself. The production seems more consistent than ever before, stripping away all frills and trinkets, like a skin that has become too tight. The compositions form a concentrate in which every single sound finds its space. In a certain sense, it's like listening to an introspection in which the bundled voices become a single, demanding murmur that is both drone and whisper in equal measure.

I see you in blows of delight
Where have you been?
Make my eyes to love the things that want to love

(From "In Wonnenhieben", engl. "In Blows of Delight")

As on the previous album "Haut", the drums were played by long-time stage partner Ran Levari. The new album also features cellist and singer Lih Qun Wong ("Lihla"), who first joined Die Wilde Jagd for the Live performance of "Atem". This collaboration sounds particularly impressive on "The Hearth", the band's first English-language song. A beguiling track as if of shiny, heavy tar, carried by Philipp's dense composition, Levari's pulsating beats and lyricist Wong's voice. Other production partners were Philipp Otterbach ("Kelch") and Vactrol Park ("In Wonnenhieben"). Nina Siegler, who could already be heard as a duet partner in the song "Himmelfahrten", also lends her voice again to the tracks "Ouroboros" and "In Wonnenhieben".

When the journey ends after just under 50 minutes with the questions "Will your songs blind me again? Be sparkling eyes to me in the dark?" and dissonant choirs release you out into the distance, it's as if you're right back at the beginning again, only to set off once more. An album as strange as it is beautiful.

- Daniel Jahn