Manchester-based ambient folk artist Black Brunswicker shares new track “View from the Lookout Tower”
September 6, 2024 BY Emma Orland
Manchester-based ambient folk artist Ethan Helfrich (who releases music under the moniker Black Brunswicker) recently confirmed the release of their upcoming album, Been Around Here Before, due 27th September via Nettwerk. Been Around Here Before was forged from a feverish memory bank of muggy Midwestern summers spent ambling through forests, streams, and caves in search of shade. Close your eyes, and you can almost hear the creek burbling over rocks, green leaves melting into a clammy, mirage-rich blur-like wavy heat rising from hot asphalt.
Today, Black Brunswicker has shared the Grouper-esque track “View from the Lookout Tower,” which features Chorley musician Tom Welsh on bass and mandolin as well as diaphanous coos from singer-songwriter Emily Mercer and a “tiny bit” of a trumpet from Manchester-based musician Joel Harries. Pairing wind-blown textures with tape warbles, the song title pin drops an 80-foot steel structure in Brown County State Park, Nashville, Indiana, where teenagers typically sneak off to hang out. “It’s somewhere that I always liked going… It’s quite kind of intimidating when you’re up there looking out because there’s a pretty vast sea of trees. But I’ve always had a connection to forests and woods.”
LISTEN / WATCH – “VIEW FROM THE LOOKOUT TOWER” BELOW:
“View from the Lookout Tower” is available on all streaming platforms here
Been Around Here Before is available for pre-order here
“View from the Lookout Tower” follows on from previous singles “Down at the Creek“, “The Cave“, and “The World Passing By“.
Black Brunswicker creates rich ground for reflection with roaming instrumentals closely rooted in nature, casting a restful spell. The Bloomington, Indiana-born/U.K.-based 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.
Been Around Here Before jells into a 10-track collection of DIY folk-brushed ambient that balances noise with beauty. Reunited with an old Tascam four-track, Black Brunswicker used field recordings and DIY cassette loops—also recording to tape for the first time in four years—to build a mellowed out, sun-glazed scrapbook of their past, finding a welcomed stillness through music as they grapple with present-day anxieties.
BEEN AROUND HERE BEFORE [TRACKLISTING]:
1. This Heat is Getting to My Head
2. View from the Lookout Tower
3. The Cave
4. The World Passing By
5. Deep in a Summer Malaise
6. A Cabin for all to Gather (or to Hide)
7. Full Moon Rising
8. It Comes and Goes Like Raindrops on My Window
9. The Voice of Late Night Hallucinations (Religious Radio Noise on 169)
10. Down at the Creek
