Ernst Molden & Sigrid Horn - kuaz vuan weda
"Sigrid Horn and Ernst Molden, singer and singer, poetess and poet, separated by one to two generations in age. Both have attracted attention with their songs, both have been working for years in different, albeit related artistic dialects on their respective poetic counterworlds.
Now also together: the cycle KUAZ VUAN WEDA brings together songs written jointly for the first time, an artistic encounter to be eagerly anticipated."
As far as Ernst Molden is concerned. Music was not directly bestowed upon him at birth. As the son of the author Hanna Molden and the famous publisher Fritz Molden, Molden haunted the scene venues of the city center in the 1980s as a dandy with a cane. He later chuckled about that time, saying he would have just been an artist without a work back then. Soon he emerged as a writer. With plays like DER BASILISK (premiered at the Schauspielhaus) and novels like DIE KROKODILSDAME and AUSTREIBEN, he quickly made a name for himself. His love for music remained rather unrequited at first. It was hesitant for a long time. The early albums from 1996 did not raise much hope. But in 2008, the musical button finally opened for Ernst Molden. With the double release WIEN and FOAN, he catapulted himself into the heart of a new scene, where dialect was sung, avoiding the 'Austropop' label. From then on, it steadily rose. Both qualitatively and quantitatively. The subtlety of albums like HO RUGG, SCHDROM, YEAH, and ZIRKUS speaks for itself. Ernst Molden became, like his role model and friend Willi Resetarits, an integration figure of the scene. In a variety of projects and collaborations, including with Ursula Strauss, Christopher Seiler, Der Nino aus Wien, and Willi Resetarits, his personality has blossomed in the most beautiful way. At his label BaderMoldenRecordings, founded together with Charlie Bader, he early on fostered talents like Sigrid Horn and Anna Mabo. It should not go unmentioned that Ernst Molden has been translating Asterix comics into Viennese since 2018.
Sigrid Horn, born in the Mostviertel region of Lower Austria, has sung her way into the professional domestic music scene through the protest song contest. Her dialectical debut album SOG I BIN WEG was breathtakingly beautiful. "Deck mi zua, I leg mi in dreg, waun ana frogd, wo i bin, sog i bin weg." she proposed dark themes right from the first song of the album with her bright voice. This reminded one of a dictum by the great American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, which states, "I like beautiful melodies, telling me terrible things." Horn's musical arrangements oscillate between dizzying sparseness and captivating subtlety. Horn's songs breathe the spirit of the 1970s. They tell of the personal, but also certainly carry political undertones. Linguistically, she is fixated on the Mostviertler dialect. The dialect has the advantage, she says, that "when singing, there are more possibilities with the vowels and consonants than in standard German. The Mostviertler sound provides a different voice placement, for different vowel colors." Despite all the fragrant "Öpfebam" and "Mostbianblia," Horn developed a feeling of foreignness in her homeland amidst the scenic idyll. This supports her perspective on the phenomena that appear vaguely in the Mostviertel "Nöwi." What does Horn expect from good music? "It must shake me beautifully. It simply must resonate within me." As songwriters on equal terms, Horn and Molden met during their conceptual album 45 JAHRE NEIN ZUM AKW. For KUAZ VUAN WEDA, they are composing new songs together for the first time. One can look forward to it.
(Samir H. Köck)