The German experimental duo Ludwig Wittbrodt – cellist Emily Wittbrodt and laptop player-drummer Edis Ludwig – has developed a unique aesthetics of its own that draws inspiration from Krautrock and neue musik, of early electronic music as well as drone and ambient. Schleifen (Grind in German) is the duo’s sophomore album, following the debut self-titled album (Ana Ott, 2020), and was recorded at Mount Wobble Studios in Cologne.

Wittbrodt and Ludwig are an odd couple, but both have been active in the Rhine-Ruhr region for years. She has an academic background as a cellist, he is a self-taught player on the laptop and programming; she is active in the free jazz and free-improv (and plays in the collective The Dorf and its offspring, hilde quartet) while he drums with the rock band Düsseldorf Düsterboys (but also in the improv bands Nassau and Transport).

Schleifen offers a cinematic, melancholic ambience. Its seven pieces enhance and expand the sonic palette of the acoustic cello with subtle yet rich layers of dreamy and kosmiche drones (the title piece, for example), samples of human voices («Flamenco») and processed sounds of the cello («Fischer»), with some otherworldly, fragmented pulses and sparks of Eastern mysticism («Freibad»). The cello and the laptop become an intriguing sonic entity, an electro-acoustic chamber ensemble that suggests an untimely, poetic and highly immersive sonic experience.

Eyal Hareuveni

Emily Wittbrodt (cello) Edis Ludwig (laptop, drums)