Release: 18.09.26
Music is always at its most compelling when it emerges from the diary of life. For many people, the word dark carries negative connotations. With his album Dark, Cologne-based trumpeter Matthias Schwengler offers a powerful counterpoint to this widely held perception.
A guitar slowly emerges from the half-light, while a trumpet whispers its way into the guitar's delicate plucking. Accordion and bass hover around the dance of the two instruments, gently courting their interplay. Melodies unfold as though of their own accord, carving pathways into a reality that first reveals itself only through the boundless mystery of darkness. Gradually, contours begin to take shape, settling into perspectives that become guide rails for the ear. Four instruments merge into a soft chorus of anticipatory remembrance.
Although the entire album inhabits shadowy realms, the softened darkness of Matthias Schwengler's music never feels depressive or bleak. On the contrary, it creates a dependable refuge from the garish overload and relentless acceleration that define the Information Age.
Dark is the fourth album by Schwengler's band Soulcrane, featuring guitarist Philipp Brämswig and German-Iranian bassist Reza Askari. The trio has been performing together for eleven years, but over time they began inviting guest musicians to enrich their palette with new shades and colours. This time, the fourth member is French accordionist Laurent Derache. His instrument lends the music an effortless sense of open-endedness, whose weightless grace adds yet another layer of redemption to the album's romantic spirit. Derache is a master of sophisticated understatement. He expands Schwengler's sonic imagination with excursions that stretch from Buenos Aires through Paris to the shores of the Black Sea. Schwengler first met him in the Subway Jazz Orchestra, where Brämswig also performs. Askari grounds this journey into inspiring darkness with his unpretentious bass playing, much as Jimmy Garrison did in John Coltrane's quartet.
Unlike 99.9 percent of all jazz ensembles, Soulcrane's sound is shaped not only by the musicians who appear on the recording, but also by the ones who are absent. Unless one consciously listens for it, it hardly registers that the band performs without a drummer. Much like the quartet Charms of the Night Sky led by American trumpeter Dave Douglas—where the accordion likewise plays a central role—the rhythmic function of the drums is seamlessly absorbed by the other instruments. "The guitar takes over most of the drummer's role," Schwengler explains. "It carries the majority of the rhythmic elements. I don't have to tell Philipp exactly what to play—he has an incredible sense of presence. Over the years we've also developed the understanding that everyone in the band shares responsibility for timing and tempo."
Schwengler himself commands a remarkable spectrum of timbres. At times his trumpet takes on the character of a trombone; elsewhere it evokes the mellow sound of a flugelhorn. He gravitates toward warmer, softer and darker colours of tone—perfectly in keeping with the album's theme. His constantly shifting approach to tone painting is strongly reminiscent of Impressionist art. In live performance he enjoys moving freely between different musical approaches, but in the studio he favours a quieter, more muted voice. "This album was also deeply influenced by Balkan music. My wife is from Bulgaria, so I immersed myself in those traditions. I love exploring as many contrasts as possible on a single instrument and discovering all the different possibilities it offers."
Schwengler and his fellow musicians thus traverse a wide spectrum of darkness and twilight, ranging from the metaphorically veiled to the physically tangible. It all began with the composition "Dark." Schwengler has always been drawn to the comforting melancholy of minor keys, but when this piece emerged from his imagination, he felt it was the darkest composition he had ever written. It, too, was inspired by the character of Balkan melodies, yet it became interwoven with Schwengler's own memories of Germany's Ruhr region to form something deeply personal.
Matthias Schwengler comes from a family of miners. As a boy, his father took him down into the mines, revealing a mysterious underground world he could never have imagined. It is this very world that now resurfaces on his album.
Even the cover artwork, built around two miners' lamps, abstractly evokes winding towers and blast furnaces. When Schwengler describes the music as "music from the heart," he is referring to the formative experiences of his youth. "I identify very strongly with the Ruhr region. That's where I grew up—coal mines and winding towers were everywhere. My father still has miners' lamps, helmets, and all the maps of the underground shaft labyrinths at home. Back then, you could walk underground all the way from Bochum to Düsseldorf. Once, I was allowed to descend 1,100 metres into the mine." At this point his voice falters, and all he can add, with the wide-eyed wonder of a child, is: "It was absolutely unbelievable."
Matthias Schwengler is a romantic in the truest sense—someone who never conceals his emotions. It is precisely this irresistible narrative power, intertwined with a sense of historical and mythological memory, that gives the delicate darkness of Dark its quiet inner radiance.
Matthias Schwengler – Trumpet
Laurent Derache – Accordion
Philipp Brämswig – Guitar
Reza Askari – Bass
1) Dark 03:55
2) Accordion Interlude 01:12
3) Quiet Little Place 05:03
4) Bass Interlude 01:25
5) Walk Of The Mummer 07:54
6) Trumpet Interlude 00:59
7) Change Of Scenery 07:01
8) Spaces 06:01
9) Guitar Interlude 01:14
10) When She Was Minus Three 06:17
11) Reason Implement 07:20
Recorded in May 2025 at Hansahaus Studios, Bonn by Nico Raschke.
Artwork by Matthias Schwengler & Jan Rössler.
matthiasschwengler.de
Soulcrane & Laurent Derache
“Dark & Quiet Little Place” (Studio)
Soulcrane & Laurent Derache
“Change Of Scenery” (Studio)
