song: Single Girl

Single Girl by The Carter Family in Sixteen Horsepower's version. You can find it on Folklore , the fifth CD of the American band around David Eugene Edwards. The gentlemen play Pukkelpop's main stage Saturday at a quarter to six and have made one of their best albums with Folklore, two good reasons to give David Eugene Edwards a call.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "One of the main ideas I guess was to take it in the direction we took it, which was more of a sparse and reserved in a way musically. Another thing was we wanted to make a record of traditional songs, I mean songs that weren't our own, but songs that had a big impact on our music or on us. But music that is more, not like cover songs, just traditional music."

On Folklore Sixteen Horsepower digs for their roots, even more so than was the case on their previous records. On the CD there are four original songs, four traditionals and two covers of artists who have influenced Sixteen Horsepower: The Carter Family then and also Hank Williams.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "We chose from a great many and picked the ones that we thought would work the best with the whole concept of the record and to put our own voices in there as well alongside this other music, you know, our own creations. Just to kind of give a folk feel and a folk story with the whole project."

There were Gun Club and Joy Division covers on the previous album Hoarse. If Sixteen Horsepower hadn't already recorded them, they could have been on Folklore too, because Edwards also thinks that is folk. After all, for him that flag covers all music not made as a commercial product.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "Well, I think it's just music of the people for the people, really rather than being money based or as a product. The music is made for a specific purpose rather than for making money. Music has a different attitude and a different feel when it's not made for money."

song: Outlaw Song

Outlaw Song by Sixteen Horsepower, a translation of a Hungarian traditional. The band even recorded a Tuvan song. That seems a surprising choice, but they are songs that mean a lot to Edwards.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "The Hungarian song and the Mongolian song that we did, those are two big examples of music that has influenced us, as well as each of those particular songs in general. Just the content of those songs and having to do with horses as well and how horses are such an important part to their lives as they are to American lives, in times past especially. Rather than picking all heavy songs speaking of regret and sorrow and loss."

On Folklore Edwards wanted to reach a balance between various emotions and therefore not only songs about loss and regret. Yet the album still gives the impression that sorrow, guilt and sense of sinfulness are still important themes.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "Of course, yeah, we just wanted to have a balance of emotions, really. I guess it's pretty difficult for me to go outside of this. That's just what I am good at or that I can relate to well and that I can express well. Not that that is all that I am, but that's what I have been given to be able to express better than other things, for whatever reason."

Earlier this year Edwards recorded a solo-album under the moniker Woven Hand which has yielded a remarkable bonus for him: Wim Vandekeybus saw the Woven Hand-concert in Brussels and will use some songs for his new dance production. He has also asked Edwards to compose some music especially for the production. It was Tom Barman who put Vandekeybus on that track.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "Basically through Tom Barman of dEUS. They are friends and I think Wim was looking for music for his new project and Woven Hand happened to be playing in Brussels at that time. Tom told him to see us play and just to check it out and that he might really like it. And he did. That was it. We started talking and I've been working on it for about a month and a half now already. I'm just about to be finished, because the première is next month."

The music for this dance production will be released on CD later, we'll keep you posted. But on Pukkelpop Sixteen Horsepower will most probably focus on Folklore. Here's another track from that album, one by Edwards himself: Beyond The Pale.

song: Beyond The Pale