Hyacinth

Description

Vinyl LP with printed inner sleeve + download card. CD Digipak with lyric insert.
David Eugene Edwards has always been larger than life. His music with the innovative folk group Wovenhand, and before that the haunting revitalization of antique Americana in the solitary sound of 16 Horsepower, has infused a sense of urgency and almost apocalyptic power into long-abandoned musical archetypes at the end of the 20th century.
On his very first solo album under his own name, Hyacinth, David Eugene Edwards delivers a sound that is uniquely his own, with a vulnerability and introspection previously unknown to him. Stripping away the heavy rock of his recent work with Wovenhand, Hyacinth emphasizes the man's voice and a spare instrumentation. There is a dark beauty and a weary tone of the world throughout these songs. The album could be seen as a slight return to the more melodic sounds of Secret South (2000) by 16 Horsepower and the self-titled debut album by Wovenhand (2002). But there is more here: a rhythmic and pulsating current that recalls the tape loops and rudimentary beats of 80s industrial post-punk as well as the beats of 808 Drill style. The overall effect is often as if we are hearing the ticking of the clock of our own mortality.