The now-Berlin-based international artists Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto, known as hackedepicciotto, have shared a new video, “Draussen” from their latest album, Lichtung, which was released on limited-edition candy coloured vinyl, CD and digitally this summer.
The new album marks the point that Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke end a period of nomadic life. After 14 years, they chose to set down roots and settle in the outer edges of Berlin, close to nature with fields not far from their garden.
They explain:
The album is called Lichtung, which means a clearing, a place in which you can suddenly see the light in a dark forest, a place to rest. As the world seems to be spinning ever more quickly into a place of madness, being in this quiet place helps us think about how to deal with it all.
The neighbourhood is close to where Alexander grew up and, crucially, where age 14, a mere 12 months before he joined Einstürzende Neubauten, he began experimenting with electronics. In a perfect circle, this being the first music he’s released since departing Neubauten, both he and Danielle found themselves experimenting with electronics as well as with their usual composition structure, and language. Also, the album’s lyrics, written by Danielle, are entirely in German for the first time.
For Danielle, an American who had already lived in Berlin for several decades, (co-founding the city’s famed Love Parade) before setting off on her world tour with Alexander, this was a deliberate challenge that forced her to engage intensively for the first time with the German language and its historical connotations.
Alexander says about the album’s sound:
I’ve revisited electronic elements, moments of experimental electronic music, just like back then in my childhood bedroom in Lichtenrade, when I was still Alexander von Borsig. And once it was clear that Danielle would be writing lyrics and singing in German, I subsequently moved beyond many of those Anglo-American conventions that we had worked with in the past quite naturally, almost without ever questioning them.
hackedepicciotto have announced a series of German and Portuguese dates for spring. The tour will include a celebration of Lichtung, at Berlin’s Silent Green on 27 June, with very special guests.
