Claudia Brücken: Night Mirror DLX – UK 2xCD [2025]

Disc 1: Album

1. My Life Started Today 3:28
2. Rosebud 4:09
3. All That We Ever Have 3:37
4. Sound And The Fury 2:36
5. The Only Ones 3:28
6. Funny The Things 3:53
7. Sincerely 3:17
8. Shadow Dancer 3:34
9. To Be Loved 7:18
10. Dancing Shadow 4:26

Disc 2: The Nighttime Mixes

1. Sound And The Fury (After Midnight Mix) 5:02
2. Shadow Dancer (Moonlight Mix) 4:40
3. Sincerely (Stars At Night Mix) 4:11
4. To Be Loved (Early Hours Mix) 4:12

Claudia Brücken immediately lent the music a sense of hushed drama with her recitation of the lyric “my life started today” as her voice, the elegant synth strings and subtle piano of Charlie Williams magically set the tone for the album. In a world where you have to put the “banger” right up front so the streamers will not hit the “next>” button within seconds, Ms. Brücken had decided that her audience had plenty of room for adults. The overwhelming sense when I heard her sing the refrain “You’d better change, you’d better change” I fully expected to hear her counter with “soon it’ll be filled with parking cars.” A strong hint of the melody to “Satellite Of Love” was impregnating the music that strongly, but the sweetly distorted guitar of David Rainger and the drum programming that kicked in pushed the musical boat off the launch ramp into the unknown.

Then the song dared us to expect more as she continued to recite the lyric, apart from the repetition of the “you’d better change” refrain, which got strong support from the guitar throughout the song. It was daring to begin an album with a song so essentially static; with a quality of stillness instead of propulsion, yet the music bed still filled it with a winning dynamism that suited the lyric. Let’s watch and listen.

The pre-release song, “Rosebud” featured not one but two different bassists! Ben Reed and Mike Allen each enhanced the motorik beat with their guitars. And the organ, piano and crystalline synths formed a Krautrock vibe of the warmest, most analog variety. The twin bassists would also figure on the next song, “All That We Ever Have” but the bent notes on the guitar almost make me wish that someone had said “we need a pedal steel here.” This was music that existed in the no-man’s land between Synthpop and Country Music. The trilling synth arpeggios in the middle eight and the sequencers throughout insured that it landed on the Synthpop side of the line. Just barely.

“The Sound + The Fury” was perhaps the first song here that we would have expected from a Claudia Brücken album. But even the synth patch that opened the song had a hint of guitar twang to it. But the martial drum machine fills were from the New Order playbook, as if they were excised from the middle eight of “Blue Monday.” They built up relentless pressure that the lazy swoop of the guitars managed to partially defuse. The cold ending that jumped out at less than the three minute mark was a shocker. They had built a groove here that was good for four to five minutes but as I would learn, there would be no fat on the bones of this album.

“The Only Ones” opened with the cogent couplet of “the more I see the less I know.” The delicate little number was touched with synths occupying a pedal steel position in the music and the touch of pizzicato strings where a bass guitar would have normally sat was an inspired touch. It was another flirtation with Country music from Ms. Brücken, and a successful one at that.

One of my favorite songs here was “Funny The Things.” Not only did I love the conceit of the lyrics regarding the way that memories work [or not] but the playing and arrangement was simply superb. John Williams guitar was long on the deep sustain that gave every economical lick maximum value, but his banjo playing added what might have been a sequencer in another life of Claudia’s in a whole new light. The graceful flute of Simon Elliston was another unexpected delight here. But the song was really a triumph in every light…and the furthest thing from club music of any stripe…as we can hear below.

“Sincerely” took a leftfield step towards a West Coast Jazz sound with the acoustic guitar of Williams and the percussion of Ray Moody. Mr. Elliston’s flute was icing on the Jazz cake. The only fault I can find with the sing was that just as it was firing on all cylinders it was almost over at the three minute mark. All we got after that was a fade.

The clockwork drum programming of “Shadow Dancer” was a case of Claudia moving in a traditional [for her] direction with the synths predominating this time. Jason Mayo was adding Knobula Eurorack sounds and the swooping synths were making a bold statement here. The delicate guitar lick that David Rainger added with great economy was a deliciously subtle hook among these machines syncopating.

“To Be Loved” was a climactic ballad for this album. It could have been a completely acoustic arrangement, though it certainly heeded “the call of the machine.” But it was the piano, “string” and flute that set the pace here. The distorted guitar that manifested halfway in was complete surprise, but by that point in the song, Ms. Brücken was at a point of simply repeating the refrain. It felt like it was done at the five minute mark, which would have been clearly the longest song here, but it was there that Claudia stopped singing, to allow the song an extended instrumental coda that lasted for another two and a quarter minutes. It really should have stood as the last song of the album, but there was one more track here.

The rubbery sequencer and handclaps of “Dancing Shadow” were a surprising move to a dance music aesthetic on this album which had paid precious little heed to such things thus far. It felt like a “bonus track” for the album. With a dance dub mix of “Shadow Dancer” letting the syncopated sounds act as a bridge to the second disc here.

This edition of the album contained the Nighttime Mixes of four tracks on a bonus CD EP as remixed by Jason Mayo, who figured on a few of the album tracks. Up front, I wondered how this material from an album that was generally far from club music would fare in this regard, since only “Shadow Dancer” and “Sound + The Fury” had that sort of DNA in it.

As it turned out, the EP had both. Squelchy bass synth creeping up on Acid with delicate synth arpeggios further illuminated “Sound + The Fury” with shards of discoball lighting. I liked the percussive syncopated synth line cutting through the song. and Ms. Brücken was fully present with her vocal, so this wasn’t a case of discomix overkill. Until it was. The mix felt over at the 3:30 point. There’s nothing wrong with a succinct remix, but the last 90 seconds of this felt labored and perfunctory.

“Shadow Dancer” was touched with choral patches for a spacier vibe but the strong syncopation of the track was leaned into heavily for an enhanced heft of the song. With a slight drop added early on for an emphatic boost. I also enjoyed how Ms. Brücken’s vocal was multiplexed throughout for a slightly psychedelic touch. Recasting the song in a hall of mirrors setting that suited it well. I had to smile at the touch of the distinctive “Blue Monday” drum pattern in the fade! Maybe the choral patches were an early hint!

The “Sincerely [Stars At Night Mix]” surprisingly kept some of the Jazz vibe of the original, and resisted dancefloor overkill for a touch of Dub with the added light percussion and the pulsating reverb added to the track. The Early Hours mix of “To Be Loved” took what was clearly an album finale in its original incarnation and turned it into a Pop song; giving it a focus where it was first content to wander. It still featured Claudia singing the refrain past the halfway point, so it followed the path of the original. Only tightening it up in the remix.

Claudia Brücken is definitely exploring new areas on her latest album. In a year where we’ve lost Marianne Faithfull, the vibe here suggests that she can take us to a similar place with her songwriting. The success of the xPropaganda project offers her a choice and with that bucket to explore the traditional electronica of her heritage, this album moved in a more acoustic direction. Like Marianne, there would be synthesizers employed, but the sonic palette was widened to take in anything that she and her partner John Williams felt appropriate to the vibe with traditional and even acoustic instrumentation framing these songs.

And the vibe here was tightly focused. These songs definitely cohered into a personal, late night space in keeping with the very on target title of the album. As if in John Williams she had found her own version of Angelo Badalamenti to add musical chiaroscuro to the already introspective songs. The fascinating thing is that she has hinted at many of the directions she explored here in her two cover albums; “Another Language” and “The Lost Are Found.” The stabs at acoustic and folk music on those albums manifested more largely here with original material that didn’t shy away from approaching Country adjacent styles of music we don’t normally associate with Ms. Brücken. But maybe we should.

I often get on my high horse about Post-Punk favorites of mine slumming at “busking” as I call it with their tedious acoustic performances. Though many of the songs here touch on Country music and feature traditional instrumentation as much if not more than electronics, there’s a sense of integrity in these songs and performances that don’t sound like recordings I could name by other favorite performers who set my teeth on edge when I hear them.

My great enjoyment of this album has certainly lit a fire under me to obtain the last two Brücken albums which have been difficult to obtain CDs of in America. Particularly the “Where Else…” album which was the first pairing of Ms. Brücken and John Williams. This has been a pairing that has worked wonders for me as I liked the album on first play, only to quickly grow to loving it with revisiting. And the brevity of the album certainly lends itself to replay as none of these songs come close to wearing out their welcome. With “Night Mirror,” Claudia Brücken has proven that her taste and talent has never let her down and it certainly doesn’t seem like that is ever going to happen. The limited CD as reviewed here is still available, as are other formats. DJ hit that button!

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