World of Echo

This latest opus from Bavarian hauntological supernova Christian Schoppik is a bit of a departure from his excellent “Water” trilogy in a couple of significant ways. The big one is that Nový Svět’s Jota Solo (Jürgen Weber) has joined the fold on vocals, but this release also marks Schoppik’s return to more conventional song lengths after three albums in a row of longform collages.

Any resemblance to conventional songcraft pretty much begins and ends with those shorter durations and the presence of a vocalist, however, as all of these pieces remain very much in the “hallucinatory soundscape” vein (albeit now with some hushed German-language spoken word thrown into the mix). Unsurprisingly, this is another great Läuten der Seele album, as the best pieces feel like a more sophisticated, Germanic, and playful channeling of Current 93’s dreamlike “TheInmostLight” trilogy.    

The album’s unusual and inscrutable title translates as “Conversations With Larvae and Fossilized Remains,” which deceptively suggests that this album is likely to resemble one of Richard Skelton’s more earthy, dark ambient releases. The title makes a bit more sense in light of Margot Benetti’s insightful album description, however, as she likens this release to a crack in a stone wall that hides a completely different and unrecognizable reality.

In a microscopic sense, that would literally be true, but Schoppik’s vision is considerably more fun, surreal, and eclectic than the secret inner life of a pile of rocks. While the exact character of that secret wonderland is quite a challenge to describe due to the disorienting and shifting juxtapositions of disparate sounds and eras in Schoppik’s sound collages, “a hallucinatory mash-up of Grimm’s fairy tales, German cabaret, and ancient folk rituals” is probably as close to the mark as it is possible to get. 

Sadly, my grasp of German is not strong enough to fully comprehend most of Weber’s lyrics, but I am not sure how much that matters, as he has an endearingly well-documented history of throwing himself wholeheartedly into singing in other languages that he has not come close to mastering. The important thing is that the essence and character come through and his raspy presence is a welcome addition to the Läuten der Seele vision. Sometimes he sings a bit, but he primary functions as an enigmatic narrator for my trip down an endlessly shifting and temporarily elusive rabbit hole of Bavarian mindfuckery and he nicely imbues the festivities with a deep gravitas (regardless of what flavor of eclectic and anachronistic samples Schoppik throws his way). More importantly, Weber seems uniquely well-attuned to Schoppik’s freewheeling and mischievously phantasmagoric vision of hauntological folklore and whimsy. 

To my ears, the album’s zenith is arguably the one-two punch of “Wir Zwei Allein” & “Das Alles Dass.” In the former, a slow and beautiful cello theme anchors a delirious swirl of bittersweet woodwinds, heavenly choral samples, hushed spoken word, and insistently cheery German pop music. In the latter, a host of streaking and blooping electronics flickers across a shapeshifting and warmly murmuring backdrop of layered voices, acoustic guitars, and carnivalesque calliope. Impressively, that hot streak improbably extends for at least the next four songs, as Schoppik’s vibrant collages weave through a mesmerizing dream-fog of croaking frogs, gently sloshing waves, shivering strings, ancient pagan rituals, operatic vocal samples, and mournful accordion melodies. 

Elsewhere, “Schein und Haben” beautifully transforms from shimmering and spacy ambiance into a final act that sounds like a surprisingly soulful and lovely duet between a Christmas-y sounding ‘60s pop song and a strangled/deflating saxophone. The closing “Ein Englisches Lied” is yet another stunner, as Schoppik weaves a compelling maelstrom of choral voices, streaking electronics, accordion melodies, and some darkly sensuous singing from Weber. That definitely ends the album on a very strong note, but there are not really any lulls or missteps to be found before that point, as the album’s weaker tracks tend to simply be interludes rather than fully formed pieces that lacked inspiration.

Schoppik truly outdid himself as a sonic magpie on this album, as very few other artists could craft a sustained and seamless spell of shimmering unreality that freely dabbles in everything from space music to sea shanties to flamenco to something resembling a beachside jazz funeral. The overall effect is akin to experiencing a warmly beautiful cascade of someone else’s flickering memories of German seaside vacations in ‘60s mingled with hints of something a bit darker, more timeless, more mysterious, and a bit otherworldly. It is extremely impressive that Schoppik managed to pull off such an illusion for an entire album without ever losing the sense of wonder that tenderly pervades everything. This one may very well be Schoppik’s masterpiece. If it isn’t, it is at least one of the best headphone albums of 2025 by a landslide.

Listen here.