The German duo of Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto, who record under the handle hackedepicciotto, are poised to release Keepsakes on July 28, available on vinyl, CD, and digital. It’s their fifth studio full-length overall and second for Mute Records, a good label fit for the married couple’s music as they brandish a combination of experimentation, song structure, and dark cinematic ambiance tinged with Industrial motifs and elements of drone. The sound is textured but packs a wallop.
The halves of hackedepicciotto were long busy prior to their union. Alexander Hacke was a founding member of German Industrial titans Einstürzende Neubauten, while Danielle de Picciotto moved to Berlin in 1987 to sing in Space Cowboys, The Ocean Club, Die Haut, and alongside Hacke, in the reunited Crime & the City Solution.
Those who know Einstürzende Neubauten only by reputation or through their heaviest recordings might expect the wallop mentioned above to be shaped by clanging, grinding, pummeling severity, but no; those cited Industrial motifs relate more to the period when the genre’s brutalizers (and associated fucked-up musical entities) were travelling down more song-oriented and soundtrack-like pathways.
Keepsakes’ opening track “Troubadour” emerges quietly, with the sound of tides as chimes and a strummed autoharp (or dulcimer) follow. As de Picciotto begins singing, the song takes on the aura of a surreal lullaby or an eerie carnival tune. It’s not abrasive or brutal but certainly is intense, a quality shared with the next track “Aichach,” which begins much more heavily, specifically via potent bass thud that hangs around as the track evolves into something of a symphonic dancefloor shaker.
The impressively layered “Anthem” increases the tense atmosphere, de Picciotto contributing a spoken word passage as the intensity gradually rises. After it, “La femme sauvage” takes a side exit into Morricone territory, and specifically the gigantic twang of his work on Sergio Leone’s famed westerns. Avoiding the overly familiar, de Picciotto sings in French and then Hacke enters in English, foregrounding the duo reality.
It’s in “Mastodon” that Hacke’s abilities as a throat singer come into play, deepening the drone aspect, though the track still leans toward the symphonically cinematic. “Schwarze Milch” extends this scenario, but with a formidable post-Industrial churn and horns that establish a dystopian noir vibe of sorts, as the duo alternating lyrics in German.
“Lovestuff” returns to the bent lullaby zone and with a touch of the glitchy, while “Song of Gratitude” gives their cinematic thrust a sludgy twist. It’s the closest Keepsakes gets to “rock” as the prettiness of closer “The Blackest Crow” maneuvers into pop territory, though it’s nearer to Julee Cruise than straight chart material.
As a whole, Keepsakes recalls the aspirations of dyspeptic subterranean disruptors to broaden their palette, as hackedepicciotto throw a few beauty moves into the mix.
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