Working with David Eugene Edwards, 16 Horsepower's intense, tormented leader, mustn't be a piece of cake everyday. Especially when you don't share his view about the constant struggle between Good and Evil. That's what his partners thought after their last tour. The 2 Frenchmen of the gang took a break and played with another "weirdo", Arno Hintjes. And David Eugene Edwards exorcised his demons in a studio.

Since the songs from this downright solo album, as it were (2 musicians occasionally give him a hand), were meant for 16 Horsepower's next album, they don't really sound different. Right from the start, David Eugene Edwards gave the project a striking title: Woven Hand, the symbol, for him, of hands clasped in a prayer. Swinging from bare folk to gothic country music, he unflaggingly plays the same tortured songs on his banjo, scrutinizes the bottom of his soul to hunt down impure thoughts and lives in a timeless world that looks like the ghost towns in realist Western movies.

Thus, when David Eugene Edwards covers Ain't no Sunshine, originally quite a corny song, he gives us to understand that really, the sun hasn't shone since his girlfriend left. And one couldn't swear that the singer with feverish eyes didn't stuff her because she prompted him to sin. Except for Johnny Cash, no one manages to be taken for a psychopath with such appropriateness. Admittedly, David Eugene Edwards won't make new converts with Woven Hand, but now we know that he can convey by himself the delicious feeling of uneasiness that pervades 16 Horsepower's 4 albums.

Translation by Magali