Posted on: September 5, 2008 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Like a welcome draught from a bottomless well, in his latest outing with WOVENHAND, former 16 Horsepower frontman David Eugene Edwards sings ten untamed and mercy-drenched songs for thirsty listeners on TEN STONES. From the jarring folk of”White Knuckle Grip”, to the eerie bossa nova of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars”, to the fiery foot-stomper “Not One Stone”, the album forms a
song-cycle that is singular in its breadth and eclecticism. Flanked by the haunting strains of the bandoneón and the drones of the double bass, Edwards’ lyrical inversions stitch symbols into a tapestry of peaceable and hellish imagery-horsetails, honeybees, and bird wings meet flaming battles and barbed wire to proclaim sin’s devastation and the sweetness of redemption. The music of Wovenhand is utterly unique, dizzying those who encounter it, with turnings and lashings of shadow and light.

http://www.wovenhand.info/video/16HP/2000-pinkpop.html

The grandson of a Nazarene preacher, Edwards dropped out of a Colorado high

school to play music. He is known for an immense personal humility-a contrast to

his stark lyrics about the wretched state of humanity, although he is the first to tell

you that he is singing to himself. This paradoxical nature inspires such formidable

listeners as Flemish choreographer and filmmaker Wim Vandekeybus, who based the

score of the dance production “Blush” on the 2003 Wovenhand album Blush Music

(Sounds Familyre). Blush Music was preceded by 2002’s self-titled album and marked

the first of two collaborations with Wim Vandekeybus. The second work with

Vandekeybus, Puur, (Glitterhouse Records) was released in 2006 and followed the

2004 Consider the Birds (Sounds Familyre) and the 2006 Mosaic (Sounds Familyre).

TEN STONES renders a beautiful encounter with healing, suffering, and sorrow. “Not

one stone/ atop another will stand,” sings Edwards as creation lies motionless,

paralyzed in the canyon of time. Then, as all great artists await a time when the

pinnacle of their craft will be caught up in greater glory, he sings:
“This weary

melody ends/ The host of heaven descends/ Down beneath this bleeding ground/

Behold the lamb.”

http://www.myspace.com/wovenhand

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