Daniel Brandt, of lauded German electroacoustic outfit Brandt Brauer Frick, leads the apocalyptic rave with his third solo album Without Us - a multimedia project that clashes head on with the spiralling chaos of our times, trying to make sense of the world as it unravels.

It was the Joshua Tree in California where the record began to take shape against a mise-en-scene of staggering vistas and eerie quiet. Brandt spent the week recording mostly percussion with barely anyone around, and that feeling of deserted landscapes and unspoiled natural beauty translated itself throughout the rest of the process back at home in Hackney Wick, London and the studio in Neukölln, Berlin, where he completed the album.

“I began writing this album in California in 2020. At the time, it was already meant to be a reflection about the slow, relentless disaster of the climate crisis. The sad irony is that now, as the album nears its release, the very place where it began is burning. And the reason, of course, is climate change.”

The kinetic energy that infuses the album, burning like fossil fuel, barely lets up: from the melted mellotron-like weirdness of the shuffling, skittering mayhem of first single ‘PNK’: “For PNK, I recorded the ambient hum of Europe’s largest mall—a symphony of overconsumption, the endless current of goods and distractions. From this tide of waste and noise, the song emerged. It’s about breaking away, building something new, something brighter, from the ashes of what we’ve discarded.”

Brandt will perform the new album in full alongside collaborators at Barbican Hall in London on April 24.

· watch the video for PNK

· pre-order the album on Limited Edition LP · DL

· buy tickets to the Barbican performance