Howlin Wuelf Media :: Woven Hand ::

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS’ WOVENHAND RELEASE THE THRESHINGFLOOR IN EARLY SUMMER ON SOUNDS FAMILYRE

The Threshingfloor lies at the foot of a mountain in the American West. It's American Indian country: chiseled by canyons, where everything is magnificent and arresting and echoes unmistakably with whispers of the supernatural. On Wovenhand’s upcoming sixth studio album, soundscape mimics landscape, towering and jagged like high peaks, enveloping like the star-studded dome of the sky. We are acutely aware of our own smallness, as our senses are accosted by something otherworldly.

The music of David Eugene Edwards’ Wovenhand is utterly unique, dizzying those who encounter it, with turnings and lashings of shadow and light. The Threshingfloor, the follow-up to their critically acclaimed September 2008 album Ten Stones, will be released this summer on Sounds Familyre Records. Co-produced by Edwards and Robert Ferbrache, and recorded in Edward’s native Colorado at Studio Absinthe and Glade Park, the songs were finessed by the rumbling vibrations of Wovenhand bandmates Pascal Humbert on electric and double bass, the incisive drumming of Ordy Garrison, and by special guest Peter Eri on Hungarian shepherd’s flute. These sophisticated musicians freshly illumine Edwards’ considerable vocal range, formidable guitar work and masterful song craft.

The Threshingfloor is distinctively marked by the place where it was made, but David Eugene Edwards also gathers threads from other places both mythical and familiar; faraway places, well beyond the borders of his home state. The result is a stunning album that embroiders strands of Eastern and Balkan influences into the fabric of American folk music. As a child, Edwards would dig through records at the public library for these treasures—first, Appalachian folk, later, music from all over the world. Now, he travels. Sounds from the band's recent tours in Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey weave through the record with the unmistakable voices of the Hungarian shepherd's flute, the Greek oud, the Turkish saz. Lilts of Hungarian and Romany pepper the album, subtle imprints from both the Hungarian folk band that Wovenhand performs with regularly and the Iranian and Moroccan music that captivated Edwards during the writing of this record. The Threshingfloor connects places as disparate as Mongolia and South Dakota, showing off their richness like desert gems.

The new record inspires profound conclusions about our humanity: we are kin to those in the far corners of the world, and our kinship lies in our frailty. “Back to dust, as we have been told / clinging to the sky like smoke,” sings Edwards in opener “Sinking Hands.” His characteristically deep, resonant voice calls out to us to remember our wretchedness. But like a grandiose landscape, Edwards' writing and the band’s arrangements point to the divine not only as a prowess under which we cower, but as a beauty in which we can rest.

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Wovenhand’s 2008’s studio record Ten Stones, received an enthusiastic response from the media:

“Throbbing at the centre of this remarkable music sits Edwards' booming voice, like some kind of dynamo from which all manner of raw and unpredictable energies spin off to electrify and entrance. Raw, uncompromising and visionary, this is magnificent rock music striking out from the sea of mediocrity that is much of the indie rock scene these days. An essential must-hear/must-have record, Wovenhand creates powerful, potent and thrilling waves.” - Sid Smith (BBC)

"This album...should establish David Eugene Edwards as one of the truly original and compelling artists in American rock right now.” - Jennifer Kelly (Popmatters)

“The songs were pounding, surging drones in minor modes — sounding Celtic at times, Indian at others, and always primordial — that gathered themselves in mesmerizing, unstoppable crescendos. In a voice that was robust and awestruck, Mr. Edwards intoned lines about humility, exaltation and the kingdom of God, as if transfiguration were imminent.” - Jon Pareles (The New York Times)

“Wovenhand is just about the most perfect God-fearing apocalyptic rustic-folk band you could hope for.” - David Malitz (The Washington Post)

“Don’t come to David Eugene Edwards looking for a catchy melody to whistle. If there’s something getting stuck in your head while listening to his austere, harrowing Americana, it’s the cutting edge of a heavenly archangel’s flaming sword…” - Jason Killingsworth (Paste Magazine)

“Far too many artists spend their lives trying to escape something - their upbringing, their personal demons, even (in misguided attempts to secure a claim to uniqueness) their artistic inspirations - and though we as a culture tend to elevate artistic restlessness as a virtue, often it can breed sloppiness…or shallowness/insincerity….In David Eugene Edwards' case, his unwavering embrace of this singular constant has made him all that stronger as an artist. By surrendering himself, he gained a kingdom.” - Fred Mills (Blurt Online)

“It is a dark murky emotional masterpiece that tackles pain, conflict, faith and redemption with a war-like musical attack filled with battle charged guitars and pummeling drumbeats. David Eugene Edwards is America’s Nick Cave, he engulfs himself with the doomed, dark side of life and creates some of the most emotionally dense gothic Americana out right now. His musical craftsmanship is top notch and extremely unique.” - Zach Timms (The Tripwire)

In almost every documented encounter with the music of Wovenhand, what is described is an experience so visceral and so universally disorienting, that one has to take note. From the first measures of music, the taste of desert earth is on the lips; neck-hairs snap to attention as strange and unfamiliar sounds whisper just underneath the surge of guitar and the rumble of bass; clouds loom on the horizon promising either the balm of rain or the threat of judgment — it could be either. The music of Wovenhand is its own iconography, its own world, its own universe.

http://www.myspace.com/wovenhand