Leave no Traces

Radical, daring and extremely refined: that’s how Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach saw his new path for the Oratorio, after his father’s Passions had marked the climax of the baroque era. Encouraged by his godfather Telemann and liberated from the yoke of the capricious Frederick of Prussia, he found himself in Hamburg with an audience hungry for new music. And he brought them his oratorios, no longer in churches but in concert halls, where he demanded the listener’s undivided attention for sudden changes of mood and colour.

Wolfsheim's sound may bring a variety of moody synth pop duos to mind, including the Associates, Yaz, and even Soft Cell, a trio with the commonality of having European roots. Wolfsheim themselves are a German duo, but Peter Heppner's sad vocals would not be out of place in a duet with Alison Moyet, while Markus Scheidt could very well swap programming tips with Vince Clarke. It would appear that Wolfsheim harbor ambitions of success outside of Germany - Dreaming Apes is divided between material in German and English. Dreaming Apes reveals Wolfsheim as interestingly quirky, certainly. Odd ideas crop up throughout the album, placed as disconnected pieces between songs that sometimes reflect 1980s synth pop, and other times have a slightly uncertain, ramshackle air to them, and even when they have an outbreak of poppy melodicism, the mood becomes fractional and gloomy as soon as Heppner begins to sing. All rather charming, really.

Wolfsheim's sound may bring a variety of moody synth pop duos to mind, including the Associates, Yaz, and even Soft Cell, a trio with the commonality of having European roots. Wolfsheim themselves are a German duo, but Peter Heppner's sad vocals would not be out of place in a duet with Alison Moyet, while Markus Scheidt could very well swap programming tips with Vince Clarke. It would appear that Wolfsheim harbor ambitions of success outside of Germany - Dreaming Apes is divided between material in German and English. Dreaming Apes reveals Wolfsheim as interestingly quirky, certainly. Odd ideas crop up throughout the album, placed as disconnected pieces between songs that sometimes reflect 1980s synth pop, and other times have a slightly uncertain, ramshackle air to them, and even when they have an outbreak of poppy melodicism, the mood becomes fractional and gloomy as soon as Heppner begins to sing. All rather charming, really.