Manchester-based Ambient Folk Artist Black Brunswicker Shares New EP ‘A Moment Of Clarity,’ Out Now

Out today, ambient folk artist Black Brunswicker (a.k.a. Manchester-based musician Ethan Helfrich) has released their latest EP, A Moment of Clarity via Nettwerk. Listen here and below.

Helfrich creates rich ground for reflection with roaming instrumentals closely rooted in nature, casting a restful spell. The Bloomington, Indiana-born artist grew up in the Midwest and brings the sweeping plains of the landscape into their expansive guitar-led sound, drawing you closer to something primordial, vast, and earthy. Around 2019 saw a shift in their musical style, as they found themselves delving deeper into the fingerstyle technique of John Fahey, Jack Rose, and Robbie Basho — a catalysed love affair with folk and the American primitive canon that is now at the heart of their craft.

Accordingly bound up with a sense of adventure and wanderlust, much of Helfrich’s output has been shaped by the experience of travel, from the small trips taken around their new UK home on Wanderers in the North (2020) and the pastel-hued snapshot of the Czech Republic on Age of Aristocracy (2019) to the daydreaming that propelled the 2020 lockdown release Wilder Paths. 2022’s High Peaks surfaced following a trip to the Peak District. Their sublime new EP, A Moment of Clarity, locates itself in cold, windy, beautiful Norway where Helfrich recently spent some time.

Listen & Share: A Moment of Clarity:
https://blackbrunswicker.ffm.to/amomentofclarity

The Scandinavian country doubles up as the country of origin for the artwork; a serene image depicting a figure sat by a lake backed with snow-capped mountains. The photo formed part of a collection of slides belonging to the University of Exeter, originally believed to have been taken in late 19th century Norway before it was acquired by history aficionado Helfrich via eBay.

Rousing, clear-eyed opener “Nordic Winds” evokes the sensation of gazing out into still blue water, much like its visual counterpart, and serves as a fittingly natural starting point for the six-part journey that stretches out across a bounty of expert guitar-playing. The gentle piece engages in a hypnotic game of repetition and texture, balancing a bright, meandering guitar melody against a cushion of effects pedals that create an impressionistic soundscape.

Pulling deeper on an elemental force, the EP continues with “Olde Magicks,” a more maudlin meditation that neither shifts nor erupts but journeys at its own pace, anchored by a distant sun-dappled drone. A Moment of Clarity is a conversation between past and present, traversing across American primitive-style terrain with deft fingerpicked guitar while weaving in atmospherics that hint at ambient Americana or shoegaze.

2023 was an intensely emotional time for Helfrich. As such, A Moment of Clarity is above all a deeply personal record, one that plots a more vulnerable path on “The Great Unease,” “This Bodily Curse,” and “The Frolic.” Here, Helfrich attempts to grapple with depression and feelings of gender dysphoria that unfolded during a “pretty tough” year in which they came out as trans non-binary. “Music has kind of been a way for me to work through my feelings and things like that,” they suggest.

Layered with field recordings and performed in DGDEGD tuning, the previous single ‘The Bodily Curse’ came easily as a title and concept. “Because a lot of times, you know, your body does feel like a curse,” they explain. Similarly, “The Great Unease” confronts this turbulence. “It’s been very uneasy and difficult to kind of go through and express a lot of these feelings that had been repressed for decades. And I thought this works quite well for it because sound-wise, there’s something kind of uneasy about the track,” they say.

Within the scope of the EP, “The Frolic” functions as a cathartic, optimistic closing track. “I think it kind of represents finding euphoria, you know, in being who you are,” they say. “It’s something to look forward to, to kind of see the good things in what’s been a pretty tough, big, long year.”