Die Wilde Jagd

About

" A haunting synth soundtrack to a 70s avant-garde, horror flick. "

Sebastian Lee Philipp’s avant-garde moniker Die Wilde Jagd [The Wild Hunt] is a cinematic snake-charmer who bares his skin for all to see. Taking his name from a German folk tale steeped in supernatural lore that examines the role of death in our daily lives, Philipp embodies this dark mythology through his work, and no more so than on his LP, released on February 23, ‘Ophio’.

Taken from the Greek term ‘ophiology’, the study of snakes, the album details the process of transformation, where the end and the beginning begin the blur. And like a snake that sheds its skin in the dark, ‘Ophio’ undresses with its cinematic bleak minimalism, its orchestrated world-building, and with its German-language, anguished poetry.

It’s also the latest evolution in the German producer’s sound. Already on his fourth record, Die Wilde Jagd embraced the sounds of Krautrock, and Neue Deutsche Welle early on, adding more and more psychedelic and dark atmospheric elements to his work with each record. With each transformation, Die Wilde Jagd becomes yet more unique and narrative-driven, a progression that arrives at ‘Ophio’, which blends together all the artist’s previous sonic elements. On the record’s title track, Philipp sings  “‘Ophio, Ophio’ you say. Lies in the end of you Still the best ahead of me?”, as if commenting on himself as an artist. How introspective.

As the record plays out, it ends with the track ‘Ouroboros’, a reference to the ancient symbol of a snake eating its own tail, as if acknowledging the endless cycle of creativity. What this snake lacks in bite, it definitely makes up for in creativity, seeking out new territories on its next wild hunt.