There’s a line in the new Renard single ‘Heresy’ that is absolutely chilling, coming as the song’s release does just six weeks after a cult-like mob stormed the US Capitol. They were spurred on by a fanatical devotion to our nefarious 45th President, who fueled the fires of their rage with ever bigger and more dangerous lies.

“You twisted my beliefs and what is worse I let you / I believed your heresy / So more, fool me.”

The lyrics were actually penned by Sarah Blackwood, former frontress of turn-of-the-Millennium electronic stalwarts Dubstar and Client, who lends her hauntedly alluring vocals to the track as well. And Renard is actually the latest project of Markus Reinhardt, co-founder of the platinum-selling German synth-pop duo Wolfsheim (whose ‘Once in a Lifetime’ remains one of the most perfect ever encapsulations of the genre). But ‘Heresy,’ with its echoey guitars and its brooding/foreboding atmospherics, distinctly recalls New Order and late-’80s Cure – though Reinhardt himself forwards a bit of a different sonic interpretation.

“It reminds me a lot of some old 4AD stuff,” he says. “And when I heard Sarah recording for the very first time, I knew after three seconds into the verse, the song had found what it deserved. She got the mood just right, and I think it’s also obvious that the lyrics mean a lot to her. That’s why it was a conscious decision of mine to produce a lyric video, which, by the way, was subtly implemented by the Argentinean graphic artist Mia Ferrari.”

The track is taken from the new Renard album Waking Up in a Different World – released this past October via Metropolis – whose title would also prove to be sort of accidentally prescient. Indeed, the world around us seems to be changing drastically on a monthly basis – so, despite Wolfsheim having been quiet since 2005, it’s certainly good to know that Markus Reinhardt is still making music that both intrigues, and captures the moment before it slips away.