Alexander Hacke

It is a quiet Wednesday evening in Copenhagen, but most people that has showed up for tonights venue at Bremen Teater seems to know that soon this venue will be anything but quiet. Much can be said about the difference in background and musical style of the two musical characters who are about to show, but they do have one thing in common: They play insistently, consistently and uncompromisingly loud and has done so for decades!

A bell rings, telling the audience that the show is about to begin and the audience, mainly consisting of people halfway through life, calmly get seated in the comfortable cinema chairs while a drone-like suspense music is playing. The two performers of the evening enters the stage. David Eugene Edwards dressed in his habitual western outfit while Alexander Hacke has chosen to wear a black hat, motorcycle jacket, shining red shirt and platform Doc Martens shoes. Both wearing shades of a considerable size.

Although Alexander Hacke, bass player, composer and leading member of legendary Einstürzende Neubauten is long established as one of the grand old men of loud intellectual noise, it is David Eugene Edwards, the preaching frontman of Sixteen Horsepower, who is given the primary focus this evening. Chanting, singing, shouting and gesturing through his mythical and shamanistic verses and rituals while leaving Hacke hoveringer over his chaos pad and midi controlled noise.

The collaboration with Hacke is a refreshing new approach to the intense world of pain, religion, faith and salvation that David Eugene Edwards is known to present on his vintage instruments without the slightest touch of irony.

At this night it almost seemed as if the duo introduced a bit of humor. Hacke’s outfit and operation of his electronic devices made him look like a strange mix of a German techno DJ and an old grumpy guy from The Muppet Show. David Eugene Edwards was clogging while playing and for a few seconds almost moon walking sideways towards Hacke, while also Hacke at the very end of the show was lifting his face towards the audience, presenting a few physical moves that resembled a sort of dance.

Edwards has used plenty of effects and samples in both Sixteen Horsepower and in Wovenhand, but the addition of Hacke’s analogue harsh synth sounds and techno beats was somewhat unexpected. Many before has combined spiritual and native music with modern electronic beats and sounds, Eno and Byrne’s ’My Life In The Bush of Ghosts’ from the same year as Hacke’s very first appearance with Einstürzende Neubauten comes to mind. But it is rare to experience this done with an intensity and feeling of authenticity such as in the hands of Edwards and Hacke.

Text: Ronald Laurits Jensen. Photos: Morten Aagaard Krogh