Having knocked us off the balance with Socratic questioning on their cosmic avant-trance prologue “Warum” (Engl. “why”), German synth-duo Felsmann + Tiley (Dominik Felsmann and Patrick Tiley) share the first single “Open Fields” featuring Brisbane solo artist The Kite String Tangle (Danny Harley). They have also announced their upcoming album Protomensch, which will be released on February 13th, 2026 via Mute.
“Open Fields” is a vocal driven synthwave ballad encouraging us to embrace the glass-half-full optimist within and play the hand that we have been dealt with by fate.
Underpinned by symbolism, “Open fields” represent fertile soil surrounded by barren plains and craggy mountains, where – if cultivated and looked after – seeds of hope may take root and start to grow. “If ‘Warum’ asked “Why do we exist?,” ‘Open Fields’ replies: “I can’t give you the answer, but here’s the only patch in the world where you can actually plant something,” Felsmann + Tiley recap. “It’s about us as Hope Machines. The odds can be stacked against us, and we still plough through, fuelled by irrational optimism, necessary for our survival.”
Watch the video for “Open Fields (Ft. The Kite String Tangle)” here:
Pre-order Protomensch HERE.
This ray of hope shines from this life into the next during the chorus. It is in the Homeric depiction where we can take comfort in knowing that the loved ones we have lost too soon will continue to live on in our hearts every step of the way:
“All these open fields where I’ll meet you
We’ll be worlds apart, but I’ll see you
Radiating through the cracks, just light intertwined”
On their home ground with a trademark minimalist, percussionless take on neo-classical synthwave, the duo are well aware of the artistic payoffs. “When you speak quietly, people lean in. It’s the same with music,” Felsmann + Tiley argue. “With fewer elements, the subtleties of the words, vocal delivery, and evolving synth textures become more present.“ A composition built on delicate yet striking balance between absence and presence, life and death, love and loss, Felsmann and Tiley “wanted the song to be pervaded by tension, opposing forces locked in perpetual motion.”
Life imitating art once again, the collaborative process led Felsmann + Tiley to an unmapped territory they had not treaded on before hitting the studio with Danny Harley and embarking on a writing sprint together. “We wanted that extra dimension not only for the audible result but also to challenge ourselves from a production and songwriting standpoint,” the duo explains. “Danny added an entirely new dimension to the instrumental, and hearing his vision take shape in real time felt special. As part of the live feedback cycle, we encouraged him to try alternative vocal deliveries, pushing him beyond his usual style. The final result preserves that in-person magic, which simply wouldn’t have happened the same way remotely.”
About Felsmann + Tiley
How long can an artist with instantly recognizable sound stay anonymous? For years, apparently. Take Felsmann + Tiley’s reinterpretation of M83’s “Solitude,” a track that has over 200 million streams to date. Very few of those listeners know the story of evolution behind the German producer-duo’s drumless synthwave melding Cliff Martinez-style maximum emotional impact with Nils Frahm’s neoclassical minimalism. Nor are they familiar with their body of work that has reached wider audiences after featuring on BAFTA-winning crime series “Top Boy” and Acne Studios fashion shows. Slated for release in February 2026, their upcoming album Protomensch is an audiovisual statement on the absurdity of modern existence.
Having met by happenstance in 2003 on a German music production forum called MyOwnMusic.de, Felsmann + Tiley soon discovered they shared a lot more than their hometown of Stuttgart. “We were attracted to the depth and melancholy of trance pads and breakdowns that always had a certain darkness to them.” Their 12-inch Ghosts under an alias Kamui was followed by a string of blistering belters by five other aliases released on different labels, all linked by thick and heavy club sound. “And then from 2006 onwards we also started touring and doing DJ gigs all around the world.”
It was the sixth alias Felsmann + Tiley formed in 2017 that stuck. “We were having a conversation over the phone and said: Let’s mix what we like about dance music. Melancholy with reduced neoclassic bits focused on melodies and the film epicness,” they remember. What started off as a pitch deck full of big ideas and even bigger visions would take eight years to grow into an ambitious, all-out artistic vision involving immersive live experiences and a social commentary on the current state of the world.
Looking back on the duo’s body of work, the early signs of major success were there from the start. One of the standout tracks called “October” off their debut album Tempora (2018), a 21st century take on Vivaldi’s cyclical Four Seasons, was featured on the late Andrew Weatherall’s final radio show for NTS Radio and Michel Gaubert’s set for the Swedish fashion house Acne Studios. What’s more, the album also caught the attention of DEF, the management agency of Moby, Robyn, Fever Ray, and Röyksopp.
By contrast, their follow up EP Weltschmerz (Engl. “world weary”), a pitch-perfect post-mortem on the clubland during Covid-lockdown, was nothing short of homecoming. “At the time we were knee deep in philosophy and reading up a lot on existential nihilism,” the duo explains. “Everything was dark, so on the music we made like Homo Deus there are all these off-tune elements combined with organ plugins and bass. That core melancholy goes all the way back to 2003. That’s our DNA at the end of the day.”
Having got the existential dread out of their system, there was more room for the life-affirming cinematic exploration that is front and center on the 2022 EP Retrovision, a record based on cinematic scenes. A bunch of kids outside living life to the fullest (“Vision Genesis”). A drive back home late at night through the city (“Vision Night Drive”).
Where the visually-heightened sound reached wider audiences were sync placements for the reinterpretations of the songs by high-calibre artists: “The Most Beautiful Boy” by The Irrepressibles, the lead track on teen drama “Young Royals 2” and “Solitude” by M83 appeared on the gritty British crime series “Top Boy,” two tracks later released on Mute Records and Deutsche Grammophon that since then have racked up over 200 million streams.
Felsmann + Tiley’s passion for putting their very own stamp on vocal driven tracks is evident on the standout moments of their upcoming concept album Protomensch (Engl. “proto-human”), where the darkest shades of shimmering synthwave, pounding trance and introspective IDM are lit up with synth-pop songs by guest vocalists including London-based alternative outfit Pet Deaths, Australian solo-artists The Kite String Tangle, Woodes and Laius.
This juxtaposition between sentient beings and machines permeates the whole album, right from the Felsmann + Tiley manifesto introducing us to the highly-intelligent yet irrevocably-shortsighted and downright tragic character of Protomensch, to the cover artwork featuring a turtleneck wearing chimpanzee, futuristic music videos and stark social media aesthetics, to seated, next-level live-shows involving collaboration with dozens of visual artists.
More to the point, the release of Protomensch marks the moment their full artistic vision – as they envisaged back in 2017 – will be brought to fruition for the first time. However, at the same time it also marks the moment of realization for Felsmann + Tiley. As the Stoic philosopher Seneca put it, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
Track listing:
1. Open Fields (ft. The Kite String Tangle)
2. Memory
3. Opioid (ft. Pet Deaths)
4. Reset
5. Always You (ft. Woodes0
6. Seeker
7. Warnung
8. Gabriel
9. Kind
10. God Is Lonelier (ft. Lais)
11. Warum
12. Neuzeit
Purchase or stream “Open Fields (ft. The Kite String Tangle)” HERE.
Pre-order Protomensch HERE.
