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Rainer Landfermann - Mein Wort in Deiner Dunkelheit


Dan MacIntosh

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Rainer Landfermann has been featured in Decibel Magazine's Top 30 Greatest Extreme Vocalists of all time, and this German's album, Mein Wort in Deiner Dunkelheit undeniably makes the case that Landfermann deserves to be on this unique list. The second track in, "Kuntsvoll," finds Landfermann screaming like a demented banshee, while the music roars along with him. One titled "Vertieft," features a good example of Landfermann's jazzy bass work. In addition to an extreme singer, he's also master musician who has contributed his instrumental skills to recordings by PAVOR and Bethlehem. Adding to the project's variety, "Wir fehlen alle" opens with an orchestral-sounding intro.

Landfermann also plays all these instruments on the album, although he has help on a few of these ten tracks from instrumental guests. Landfermann has been compared to saxophonist John Zorn and vocalist Diamanda Gal�s, two extremely disparate artists, yet he's also � in a sense � in a category all his own. Many of these songs will make you picture a kind of German cabaret singer, when they're being played.

The album's title translates to "My word in your darkness." Not being a Germain speaker, we'll need to take his word for it that it's an album of, "Introspection, self-awareness, and � ultimately � about beauty. It's experience, appreciation, and sometimes, the painful loss of it."

If you hear anything remotely like Mein Wort in Deiner Dunkelheit this year, just double check to see if you aren't actually listening to the album a second time because there isn't anything like it.
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