Review Summary: A gait to the known but since forgotten
I wish I understood Münsteraner Platt, the Westphalian dialect I’m led to believe
Van’t Liëwen un Stiäwen is performed in. After all, between its soft strings, gaited guitar strums, and haunting vocal passages, the album tells a tale of woe, following Spökenkieker Wilhelm, a seer from Münsterland plagued by visions of death and gloom in the late-1800s. In presenting the narrative as such – recontextualising folklore indigenous to the region of Münsterland, putting to sound what was once intended for the stage – Marcel Dreckmann partakes in a concerted effort to preserve a culture specific to a certain people, indelible from a particular region. It feels wrong, therefore, dishonest even, to speak of the album as an outsider, without proper insight into the world from within Dreckmann’s words are wrung.
Opener ‘Vüörgeschicht’ creates a lulling atmosphere of strings that pull focus on what is an album of dark, at times serene, though more often mournful neofolk ballads. Closer ‘Aomdniewel’ proves
Van’t Liëwen un Stiäwen unrelenting, adopting a similar ethos of sparse, albeit built-upon stringed dread. Neither piece provides much of a reason for optimism, each concluded on a descending note, as though Wilhelm’s prophecies have rung true. Despite the album having been wrought with a keen, often overwhelming sense of sorrow, however, it presents itself with stark confidence in its sound. In contrast to the project’s bookends, both mid-album highlight ‘Kuem to Mi’ and the title track itself evoke a keen sense of adventure; the two, while no less pensive, are altogether more upbeat than what is present on the rest of the album. (Guitar flourishes prod at the former’s accented down-strums, revealing an arousing drive.) Whereas ‘Summer’ is contemplative, allowing soft-spoken, spoken-word passages to stumble atop its resigned guitar tones, ‘De Aolle Schwatters Föert To'n Deibel’ sounds to have all but given in to death itself – a character whose breath blows smoke down the album’s neck, spurring it toward its uncertain end. Wherever the album places itself, however, there is that constant push.
It feels wrong to speak of the album as an outsider. Then again, I suspect that might be the entire point. I don’t think Dreckmann’s decision to convert the tale of Wilhelm of Münsterland into a prolonged piece of music was at all incidental. More, with the help of Stefan Drechsler and Árni Bergur Zoëga, the album format allows him to spin this tale of woe – one with a strong emphasis on the preservation Münsteraner Platt and the culture inherent to its region – in a language more universal to listeners. With
Van’t Liëwen un Stiäwen, Dreckmann provides this very context, forging insight into the world from within his words are wrung.
