In a time where immediacy often trumps introspection, Brandes arrives like a breath held too long — quiet, deliberate, and achingly necessary. With his debut album The Distance Between Dreams, the Telford-based singer-songwriter carves out a space where poetic storytelling meets musical soul-searching. It’s a space where silence speaks, memory sings, and each song feels like a fragile relic unearthed from the soil of personal and historical truth.

Drawing from the shadow-lit wells of Leonard Cohen and the delicate brushwork of Joni Mitchell, Brandes’s work is steeped in introspection but never sinks into solipsism. There’s a generosity to his writing — a sense that these songs aren’t just about him, but about all of us navigating the complex terrain between what we hoped for and what we’ve become.

The Distance Between Dreams is, at its core, a record about the reclamation of heritage, emotion, and identity. The production is intentionally understated, leaving ample space for each word, each breath, to matter. The restraint is powerful. Brandes doesn’t shout; he whispers truths that hit like thunder.

Standout tracks include the aching immediacy of “Please Don’t Call,” which sets its tone with bruised honesty and lyrical finesse. The track’s swelling strings and Hammond organ serve as a graceful counterpoint to Brandes’s wearied vocals, evoking the spiritual melancholy of Cohen at his most tender. It’s a breakup song that doesn’t beg or rage — it simply accepts, and in doing so, devastates.

The confessional continues with “Like A Dagger,” a raw portrait of emotional disintegration. Acoustic strums and electric flourishes build an atmosphere that’s as intimate as a handwritten letter. Every syllable feels mined from real heartache, handled with both reverence and restraint.

“From The Higher Ground,” one of the album’s few forays into indie-rock terrain, is where Brandes lets his political fire glow. With echoes of Dylan’s incisiveness and Springsteen’s blue-collar soul, the track meditates on collective disillusionment while still offering the faintest glimmer of redemption. It’s not angry, but it is clear-eyed — a lament and a warning in equal measure.

Then comes “Siri’s Song,” perhaps the most cinematic piece on the album. Its gentle guitar work and ghostly presence evoke the elusive muse archetype, yet Brandes avoids cliché by grounding the song in subtle emotional truths. It feels like an echo from a dream you can’t quite place but can’t forget either.

The emotional and thematic centrepiece of the album, however, is “Song for Mordecai.” Inspired by George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, this track is nothing short of masterful. Integrating Nafir, Oud, Doumbek, and other Middle Eastern instruments, Brandes crafts a soundscape that is both ancient and startlingly fresh. The narrative — a dialogue between a dying visionary and a soul in search of meaning — carries the weight of history, yet its message of resilience and shared humanity could not be more timely. It is not just a song; it’s a statement, a bridge between past and present, between personal sorrow and collective endurance.

As a whole, The Distance Between Dreams plays like a literary novel — structured, layered, and infinitely re-readable. Brandes doesn’t just sing songs; he unearths them, each one bearing the patina of truth aged in time. His transition from politics to music feels not like a shift, but a continuation — from public service to soulful witness, from rhetoric to revelation.

In a debut as thoughtful as it is quietly revolutionary, Brandes invites us not just to listen but to feel deeply, fully, without irony or pretence. These are songs for those still searching, still dreaming, still hoping to close the distance between what is and what could be.

A hauntingly beautiful debut from an artist wise beyond his years, The Distance Between Dreams announces Brandes as a formidable new voice in modern folk — one that we should all be listening to.

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REVIEW BY Danielle Holian

THE SONGBIRD HQ