It begins with a solitary accordion, still too soft for the hearing to catch the melody, in the hands of singer and multi-instrumentalist David Eugene Edwards.

I find myself in a savage, vacant landscape of black-grey mountains and red, cracked soil, interrupted here and there by bizarre protruding, dead stumps and bushes. Something grand is about to come about.

A little black point, insignificantly small, appears on the horizon. It is not looming up, not quite. The sound swells, extremely restrained. It intrigues and has a hold over me. The black point is getting bigger, comes closer, ever closer - a mythical beast?

The melody, pushing up, galloping, can be heard clearly now. The mythical animal turns out to be a winged, ivory-white horse, ridden by no less a person than the singer Edwards himself. His voice coming from deep, a catch in his voice due to sincere emotion, a voice full of Christian symbolism. My name is Carol Sue, that is evident now. Lovely lovely Carol Sue/I see the heel of the father/crush the head of the serpent for you, he sings to me, by now accompanied by guitars, drums and violins, everything at a calm tempo and crescendo.

I know: this horseman will take me away. He will free me from this wild void to which I have been banished. I have been double-crossed, goddamned! I have been tempted. That's all I know. Yet all the while/'neath his banner you did stand/'neath the shadow of his wing/do you remember? I do remember now and I feel weak and guilty. The mythical beast, with the singing evangelist on its back, rushes at me. Dark clouds, packed together, race overhead. The bushes and stumps catch fire all of a sudden. Everything turns, topples, tumbles, falls. He'll come a cinder/fire call the cattle black/the dark can only hinder it/it will not hold you back/nor tear you asunder. An electric guitar cries triumphantly, like a mother, high-pitched and in one breath together with - how many violins? Countless violins, that drown the accordion, the lone wolf among the musical instruments. The singer, whilst holding out his hand to take me along, to deliver me, without decelerating, is crying out: an arrow that shoots up into the dusky sky and in mid-firmament explodes into thousands of stars. By this time cymbals like thunder resound everywhere. While we're ascending it is explained to me: And the good shepherd/lo he left all the others/an' went to look for you/yes an' he did find thee/an' with bruised hands/he did unbind thee/brought you out/into the light of day. By now I feel even more guilty than I already did. But then, thank goodness, the accordion makes his appearance, hand in hand with the plaintive violin, nearly heart-rending. Back to the stillness now, upwards above the clouds where the light is.

Forgive me my bravado. No, please don't. Music too is imagination, I now know. I'm talking about Cinder Alley, a perfectly composed song by a band called 16 Horsepower. You can find it on their latest album Secret South, a mixture of blues, folk, punk, gothic and country. But let's call it alternative country. Cinder Alley's structure is terrific, for me perhaps the best manner to create something majestic. It may be considered to be the musical metaphor for the creation of everything, the universe. It is true, all begins with nothing, but is that "all" the result of a ravenous fury to create, an explosion of energy, colour and/or sound? Or is it a composed, self-constructing and at the same time self-destroying system of myriads of elements and units? Both could be the case naturally, but I prefer the latter, like I place craftsmanship above talent.

In his lyrics Edwards sings about downright biblical themes like damnation and redemption, comparable with Nick Cave, for whom the band has great admiration. They call up images of lost souls in hazy, surreal landscapes in which the war between God and Satan is waged for ever. You taste the Christian feeling of guilt. But 16 Horsepower is more beauteous and more comforting, I think, than the depressive Cave. Edwards, thank God, is nothing like those gospel-rock singers whose music only serves as a shop window for the edifying message, those pseudo-musicians one sometimes sees at the "EO-jongerendag" (Dutch evangelic station's youth assembly). Edwards is the only scout of God - as he sees himself - I like to listen to willingly.

I saw the band for the first time at Pinkpop 2000, the tv-reporting anyway. What immediately fettered me in Cinder Alley, was the silence from which the lonesome accordion built up and the thin, whining voice of the singer a little later, ending in a climax of noise. For me the performance of this band with this song was the most impressive show of the festival.

I rarely buy cd's, but the following day I immediately spurted to the cd shop, bought the album and put on Cinder Alley. I thought it was magnificent, but the run-up to the climax was shorter and the accordion had been replaced by a violin, pleasant yes, but by far not so intriguing as that lorn accordion on tv that had enthraled me straightaway.

Said El Hadji is a Moroccan-Dutch writer.
Illustration by Jan Wolfs.