Wovenhand - 12 Galaxies - San Francisco 04.04.07
Posted by Deniz Kuypers on 05.22.2007
Wovenhand is infused with the old 16HP magic, and yet it is a different beast altogether. It’s darker, more focused. It’s music that employs less of a head-on rock approach but instead lives on dense imagery and sounds from a bygone age.
I first heard 16 Horsepower on the radio late one night. I’d happened upon this radio show a few days earlier that was sent out onto the airwaves on or around midnight. I’m not a radio person, and barring those two or three weeks I found myself tuning in to that show almost nightly I haven’t listened to much radio. But that night I heard drifting through my room the spectral tones of a lone banjo being plucked: a rhythmic drone, a single melody that repeated itself seemingly forever. It sent a host of emotions through me: first wonder, then edginess with a sense of foreboding, then awe. At long last the unnamed banjo player started to sing. I was hooked. My love for 16 Horsepower was born.
Between that first radio performance I caught back in the late 1990s (the song in question was the band’s cover of “Wayfaring Stranger”) and the breaking up of 16 Horsepower in 2005, I saw them perform countless times: from a small radio show where there were less than ten people in the audience to large outdoor stages under the stars. I was living in Europe at the time, where the band was much more popular than in their home country. To compare: between 1996 (which is when their first full-length, Sackcloth ‘n’ Ashes, was released) and 2005 the band played six full-fledged European tours and only two in the US. The band would sporadically play in the US but rarely ventured outside their native Colorado.
16 Horsepower shows were unequaled in their intensity. Over the years a lot has been written about front man David Eugene Edwards’s strong religious beliefs. It’s important to note, however, that the devotion Edwards has to his faith is carried over into his music. Edwards believes in his words and the message of his songwriting. While on stage, his mouth will twitch, sweat will pour down forehead, he’ll mutter under his breath as if he were talking to a spirit all who remains invisible to the audience. His voice will roar like thunder across the evening plains as it tells of sin and salvation, and it will seem to reach across the centuries as if coming from a wholly different place, an olden time as Edwards would have it.
Edwards can sound strangely indifferent when talking about the end of 16 Horsepower. He has said that to him the business of losing fans and gaining new ones is just that: business. Perhaps it’s understandable when considering that after 16HP called it quits drummer Jean-Yves Tola and bassist Pascal Humbert had incomes outside of music to fall back on whereas Edwards didn’t. So Edwards decided to focus all his attention on what had initially begun as a sideproject: Wovenhand.
His music with Wovenhand is infused with the old 16HP magic, and yet it is a different beast altogether. It’s darker, more focused. It’s music that employs less of a head-on rock approach but instead lives on dense imagery and sounds from a bygone age. I once wrote that though his music is undeniably Christian, Edwards has carved out a niche all for himself that is hard to qualify. His songs are dark and earthy like the blues, inspired by the writings of the saints and the great Russian authors and their struggles with God and faith in the old alleys of nineteenth-century St. Petesburg and medieval Europe.
Edwards’s output with Wovenhand over the last five years nearly matches that of 16HP of the ten years previously. He has worked hard at refining his craft and distilling his vision over subsequent releases. His performances can still be heart-stopping. And yet, from time to time I find myself thinking back on the old days of 16HP, wishing to hear songs like the pounding “I Seen What I Saw” or the incredibly moving “Burning Bush.”
It was a delight, therefore, to see Pascal Humbert, 16HP’s bassist, up on the stage again with Edwards. Humbert rejoined Edwards for the current tour, and for me it was the first time I'd seen the two play together since the last 16HP show I witnessed. Humbert plugged in his bass, finger-picked a few notes, and that familiar rumble rolled through the venue and rattled my heart. When 16HP imploded, Pascal turned to raising horses. One can see some of that robust sensitivity required to handle horses in the way he plays his instrument: gentility and thoughtfulness reigning in this immense strength. It’s as if his bass is an animal being tamed: he dances with it, coaxes it, and from time to time—in controlled bursts—lets the beast roar. And all the while he maintains his perfectly calm French face.
Tonight’s performance was in support of last year’s Mosaic. This was the second tour for that album, but the first with a full band. The potential of Edwards being backed by his band mates was immediately clear. Shortly after taking the stage the band launched into a pounding beat. Edwards sang of “thoughts altogether vain / haunted by battles lost / still living on Indian land.” The song in question, "Winter Shaker," the second track on Mosaic, was the proper introduction to a set that was mostly devoted to said album. In fact, Edwards and co. rarely ventured farther back into their repertoire than 2004’s Consider the Birds. And though on the previous tour Edwards had squeezed in one or two 16HP songs, tonight was exclusively a Wovenhand affair.
Edwards made plentiful use of the unique dynamic of playing with a band. There were few quiet, toned-down moments. Even his banjo was mostly left untouched, though he did put his banjola (a recent staple of Wovenhand shows) to exquisite use on the beautiful “Whistling Girl.” For most of the relatively short set (the band was on stage for a little over an hour) they thundered through one song after another. At its best, Wovenhand’s music can be a blend of Gregorian chant, Southern rock, Old Testament imagery, and Old World folk and instrumentation. Edwards’s career has seen him move from Appalachian waltzes and wheezing dirges and rootsy romps to something more elegant and stately. Just compare “Black Soul Choir” (from Sackcloth ‘n’ Ashes) to the more recent “Swedish Purse.” Both are excellent in their own right, but the latter shows a maturity of the spirit. Tonight’s performance took the more contemplative, majestic nature of his Wovenhand material and combined it with the ferocious rock of early 16HP. Between songs, Edwards sent undulating waves of feedback out into the audience, as if allowing the audience’s attention not to be diverted for even a moment.
I once wrote that the light of God’s love shines fiercely through Edwards’s songs, but that we should not consider it an unconditional promise: rather, it’s the other end of the bargain. After witnessing this Wovenhand show, I still feel that observation holds true. Edwards does not wag his finger at sinners or preaches lessons of duty and virtue. His music does not instill faith but explores a life lived through faith: its rewards and consequences. Though Edwards has gone on record saying that as a Christian he has the responsibility to share his experiences, he is in essence a musician who does what he does not only because God has allowed and enabled him to do so, but because he simply loves doing it. Tonight was a fine though raucous display of his incredible talent.
The 411: Edwards reminds me of one of those old storytellers that seem to have come from a mysterious place and have returned with tales so vividly, so movingly told that through their words we, too, are offered a glimpse of that place. But Edwards tells stories not just with his words but also with his instrumentation, his skillful playing, his face and hands, and his chilling, powerful voice. Edwards has said that he doesn’t perform his songs but that the songs instead tell him what to do. Whether or not that’s necessarily true, the synergy between the man and his art has created an absolutely captivating performer.
