Schatten Muse’s Vergänglichkeit

German-Greek conspiracy act Schatten Muse release debut album Vergänglichkeit on 28^th March via The Circle Music. Influenced by electronic underground sounds of the 1980s and 1990s, Schatten Muse is a duet featuring Shelmerdine and Sylvia Fürst. 

On Vergänglichkeit, the pairing give a new breath of life to the Neue Deutsche Todeskunst (New German Death Art) musical movement. With poetic lyrics about madness, desperation and isolation, Schatten Muse combine elements of dark wave, gothic, neoclassical and electro wave, all filtered through their personal prism and poetic mood along with dramatised and theatrical narration. 

The band members of Schatten Muse are no strangers to the gothic and dark music scenes. Shelmerdine is also a founding member of Dark Awake with which he has released over 20 albums and EPs. Sylvia Fürst co-founded German death art project Egotragik, and is credited for translating the song ‘Gott Ist Tot (Antichrist War Mix)’ by Impaled Nazarene on the Ugra – Karma album released back in 1993. 

Vergänglichkeit feature nine songs; seven of which are original compositions and two cover tracks. 

The covers are ‘Shadowsphere’ by Sopor Aeternus, a cult darkwave project from Germany, and Goethes Erben’s ‘Das Schwarze Wesen’ marking the 30^th anniversary of its release by one of the founding members of the Neue Deutsche Todeskunst movement.

Schatten Muse covered the song with a dramatised and theatrical narration that you can watch as a video here at RAMzine. Also presented here is the band original ‘Zurück’.

Commented on signing to The Circle Music, Schatten Muse declared:

“We are so grateful and honoured to work with the professional record label, The Circle Music. From the beginning The Circle Music showed great interest and liked our music because they realised our vision, which was to make something original and continue the tradition of Neue Deutsche Todeskunst.”

Vergänglichkeit is available to pre-order as a Jewel Case CD here, an A5 Digipack CD (Limited to 500 copies) here, as LP (180 gr Black vinyl with printed inserts) (Limited to 250 copies) here and LP (180 gr Deep Purple vinyl with printed inserts) (Limited to 250 copies) here.