Photo by Ray Moody
Best known for the mighty singles ‘Dr Mabuse’, ‘Duel’ and P-Machinery’ with PROPAGANDA, Claudia Brücken’s fourth solo album ‘Night Mirror’ sees her somewhere “Between two worlds, looking for answers in the shadows.”
Working again with John Owen Williams for the first time on a full-length long player since the 2014 solo album ‘Where Else…’, in the decade long interim, Claudia Brücken released ‘Beginn’ with Jerome Froese and ‘The Heart Is Strange’ with Susanne Freytag and Stephen Lipson as xPROPAGANDA.
Employed as an A&R executive as well and at the BBC for many years on their radio sessions, John Owen Williams’ production credits have included BLANCMANGE, THE PROCLAIMERS and THE HOUSEMARTINS. His more traditional style of songwriting saw Brücken adopt the acoustic guitar for ‘Where Else…’ but while similar colours shape the nocturnal moods of ‘Night Mirror’, there is a stronger electronic component than its predecessor for a record which showcases “the Claudia you know, and one that you don’t yet know”
Claudia Brücken and John Owen Williams chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about how the cocktail of electronic and organic textures came to sonically define ‘Night Mirror’.
Photo by Anton Corbijn
You both worked together on ‘Where Else…’ and it went well enough for you do another record, how would you describe your creative dynamic, are you sitting in a room together?
Claudia: It starts with me and John meeting up, I travel over to his place where at the end of his garden, he has a studio. We work on songs mostly from 11 until 6…
John: I’ll play Claudia some ideas and she’ll say “no”, “yes” OR “maybe” *laughs*
But if she says “I really like that”, we’ll dig in deeper and look at the music to make it so it’s unique to us…
Are you writing organically because ‘Where Else…’ had this acoustic flavour?
John: The songs mainly originate on acoustic guitar and then become transposed into electronica. So the process wasn’t that different from ‘Where Else…’ except the instrumentation was a bit different.
So that was over 10 years ago, how have your approaches evolved and what is ‘Night Mirror’ reflecting?
John: ‘Night Mirror’ is lyrically about reflection and living in the present and looking forward to the future in a nutshell. I would work late into the night with the ideas that had originated in the daytime and then pinged them over to Claudia at 3 o’clock in the morning so she was cognizant that we were changing things…
Claudia: Yes, often when you pinged, I was awake and then I would listen to the songs at that point, so they are like “night objects”.
John: We inhabit these songs, we live inside them.
How long was this process because the xPROPAGANDA album ‘The Heart Is Strange’ took a while, was this a shorter gestation period?
Claudia: John and I have been working together all these years and we enjoy it, but after ‘The Heart Is Strange’ which John also involved in on as a writer, we just kept going. We were wondering whether to continue writing for xPROPAGANDA, but then we just thought that what we were doing, it was a Claudia Brücken album.
John: We’ve been working on ‘Night Mirror for about 2 years.
2 years is quite short for making an album these days! *laughs*
Claudia: Yes, John really knows how to push a project forward and keeps the eye on the ball! *laughs*
How did this become an album of “the Claudia you know, and one that you don’t yet know”?
Claudia: There are some really personal lines that really describe some parts of me, so this record is more personal in that sense compared with xPROPAGANDA or an electronic album…
John: There are different styles while all the songs inhabit the electronic world, there are different types of songs within it, they are unlike anything Claudia has ever done before.
I agree, ‘Night Mirror’ has a traditional feel but with strong electronic embellishments which is quite unusual today…
Claudia: That’s very interesting you say that…
John: Our references in electronica are quite different, mine started with Walter Carlos ‘Switched On Bach’ and in the 70s, I worked with Bob Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil who were part of TONTO’S EXPANDING HEAD BAND, I promoted their album ‘It’s About Time’, they had the first polyphonic analogue synthesizer which powered ‘Superstition’ and other Stevie Wonder hits. Also Edgar Froese ‘Epsilon in Malaysian Pale’ was a big influence on me and then I managed BLANCMANGE as well as producing quite a few tracks. Claudia is more KRAFTWERK…
Claudia: Yes, just different worlds.
It’s a highlight of the album but why are there ‘Shadow Dancer’ and ’Dancing Shadow’ variations of the same song? Was this like a ‘Jewel’ / ‘Duel’ situation?
Claudia: I’ve always been a fan of remixes, songs can go this way or that way. So we had ‘Shadow Dancer’ and then John, you made a different version?
John: Phil Bodger who mixed the album came up with a new riff that became the heartbeat of ‘Dancing Shadow’. It gained a new life for itself and had a heavier bass synth linked to it… it was so good that it was worth a different approach. It is basically the same track…
Claudia: …yes, but more of a laid back angle. It’s almost got a bit of reggae in there…
Yes, ’Dancing Shadow’ has this dub approach?
John: I worked at Island Records and was quite influenced by ASWAD, BLACK UHURU and Bob Marley. Quite a few of the songs on ‘Night Mirror’ have a reggae lilt to them, ‘Funny The Things’ has got that.
Claudia: When you work at night, you end up approaching things in different ways… we were just exploring all kinds of fusion basically Chi.
‘Rosebud’ is classic driver friendly pop, was it obvious this would be the lead single?
John: We left the releases of the singles off the album to Demon and their promotion team, we felt each song was strong enough.
The opening number ‘My Life Started Today’ has this lovely ‘Satellite of Love’ vibe about, was that intentional?
Claudia: It wasn’t intentional but ‘Transformer’ by Lou Reed is one of my favourite albums. I’ve always liked his deliverance, that “sprechgesang” and it’s something I’m not unfamiliar with. You have influences so that will come out somewhere ad we don’t really sense ourselves in that way.
On a similar theme at the tougher end of the spectrum, ‘Sound & The Fury’ reminds me of THE STOOGES but with an electronic backbone?
Claudia: It’s great that it gives you that sense of attitude.
John: I love ‘Sound & The Fury’, I love my guitar playing on it, it’s so punky… it’s THE CARS meets NEW YORK DOLLS and there’s a bit of HAPPY MONDAYS and NEW ORDER there too.
Claudia: It’s a “don’t give up song”
There are surprises like the banjos on ‘Funny The Things’ and ‘Sincerely’ with its flamenco and flute flavour, yet both become very sequenced in places for some twists, how did these more unexpected mixtures come into mind?
John: Well, Claudia didn’t like the banjo to start with and wasn’t sure it should be there! But I think she’s grown accustomed to it.
Claudia: In the end, I decided I didn’t want to be discriminating against any instruments. I thought that if John really hears that banjo sound at that point, go with it.
John: I had produced a BLANCMANGE track called ‘Why Don’t They Leave Things Alone?’ which my friend Simon Elliston played flute on, so I realised that flute does work well with electronica; he came down to the studio and played on 2 or 3 tracks, and on ‘Sincerely’, it really works.
Claudia: Yes, it’s really groovy, I really like that 70s reference. I like having real instruments and real players, that’s a nice thing.
John: And of course it didn’t harm JETHRO TULL *laughs*
Are those real or virtual orchestrations across the ‘Night Mirror’ album?
John: They’re virtual, I used the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and it’s fantastic. I played a lot of these string parts and I’m not a trained keyboard player, so these are all sounds that I evolve and eventually find the right status.
It IS amazing what you can get coming out of your computer these days…
John: They sound real don’t they…
‘The Only Ones’ is a pretty pop number with spritely acoustic six strings, bass harmonics, sax and pizzicato sitting over a drum machine, can you tell us a bit about that one?
John: That’s a track that Jason Mayo helped us with, he had a system called Knobula which is advanced polyphonic foot pedals and he helped programme this track with me. It’s got a Vangelis-inspired middle eight.
Claudia: We wanted it to sound a bit like ‘Blade Runner’…
John: It’s like a 50s song with 60s recording techniques, 70s electronica and 80s ABBA harmonies.
Do you have any favourite songs from the album, the ones which give you most satisfaction?
Claudia: I kind of like them all for their stories and the worlds they draw you in. I like ‘To Be Loved’ a lot but it’s ‘Shadow Dancer’ that I really like. But I just like to listen to the album from beginning to end because it takes you into different kinds of zones.
John: ‘Sincerely’ is one of my favourites because it manages to paint an aural picture, the acoustic guitar works well, the electronica works well and Claudia’s vocals are fantastic. That’s something that permeates the whole album, there’s a lot of harmony singing going on, a lot of tracking and stacking of vocals that gives it a unique flavour I think.
It terms of mixing, there is a Dolby Atmos mix alongside the standard stereo, how did the approach differ?
John: David Kosten did the Dolby Atmos mix, I would provide him with 20 stems per track, a lot for these songs are running 150 tracks! There’s a huge amount of tracking going on, they’re all like jigsaws. So he would want 20 different parts and then he would try to replicate them the mixes of the album in Dolby Atmos. When we went down to hear it, it blew our minds away, it just sounds incredible. He has a 12 speaker system in his room, you sit in the middle and it’s like being transported to a different world.
Claudia: It’s a different sound experience, it not something I hear every often, I normally just listen to things in stereo so it’s a very unusual way of listening and I really enjoyed it, hearing what can be done.
As a closing question, have you any thoughts on AI and how if might affect music making in the future, particularly your roles as singer and producer?
Claudia: I have to get my head around it more, it’s unbelievable what it can do really, I want to be quite cautious with it. I have to get to know it more but its mind boggling what it can do, just taking voices so I’m having mixed feelings.
John: It’s frightening but exciting! I don’t want to use it really, I’m quite happy to use my own brain cells to construct the world that Claudia and I share, so I don’t want anything else getting in the way.
Claudia: I like the analogue world.
Are there any live dates planned for ‘Night Mirror’?
Claudia: The album could be performed but there’s no tour planned; I think it’s important people get to know the songs first before we even think about it. But I have some dates with xPROPAGANDA in Germany in December performing ‘A Secret Wish’ and ‘The Heart Is Strange’.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Claudia Brücken and John Owen Williams
Special thanks to Stuart Kirkham
‘Night Mirror’ is released by Demon Music Group in a variety of formats including vinyl LP, vinyl LP + 12” EP, CD, CD+EP and Dolby Atmos Blu-Ray, available from https://claudiabrucken.lnk.to/nightmirror
https://www.claudiabrucken.co.uk/
https://www.johnowenwilliams.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ClaudiaBruckenMusic
https://www.instagram.com/claudiabrucken/
Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
18th July 2025
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appeared on ‘Partysnäks’, the soundtrack to ‘Die Tanzbeinsammler’.
(V/A) via Grönland Records
via Union Square
was recorded for the film ‘Insignificance’ and produced by Midge Ure under the pseudonym of Otto Flake Junior.
(V/A) via Union Square
via Union Square
via London Records
was very much dominated by Gabriel’s dancefloor instincts. But all was not well within. “The MD from Island suddenly left and all the people who worked on my album left as well” she remembered, “A new guy came in and already I could sense what would happen, so Pascal and I decided to get really experimental”.
via Cherry Red Records
with CHROME SEDUCTION was a frantic club number that also saw a reunion with former partner-in-crime Susanne Freytag. The project of Magnus Fiennes, brother of actors Joseph and Ralph, it was independently released by Mother Alpha Delta.
via Union Square
via BMG
via Land Speed Records
featuring a duet with FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD’s Paul Rutherford A beautifully crafted synthesized tribute to David Bowie & Pat Metheny, it had been intended for a film soundtrack but shelved.
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via WEA
, a co-write with Martin Gore which also featured the guitar of DEPECHE MODE’s main songwriter. It was the stand-out song on ONETWO’s debut EP ‘Item’.
via 
via Sanctuary Records
via 
via 
via Soundcolours
was the alluring highlight of three songs recorded.
(V/A) via Rockstar Games
was the first song to emerge from Brücken’s reinterpretations project with producer 
via There (there)
from scratch for OMD. “Paul had the idea of asking Claudia to do the vocal in the middle eight” remembered McCluskey before thinking “y’know, could you ask Claudia to do it in German as well?”... the result was electronic magic.
via BMG
very much reflected her personal mindset following the end of her relationship with Paul Humphreys.
via Cherry Red Records
in place of Andy Bell…
, we’ll be doing something else which Claudia and Andy will sing as a duet.
is released on DC and downalod by ZTT/Salvo on 7th February 2011
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