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S'NIX

Hubert von Goisern: S'NIX

S'NIX

Hubert von Goisern - S'NIX

23.05.08 | 88697295282

  • 01. showtime
  • 02. rotz & wasser
  • 03. weltuntergang
  • 04. auseinandertreiben
  • 05. die liab
  • 06. haut & haar
  • 07. leben
  • 08. herschaun
  • 09. sieger
  • 10. siagst as - feat. xavier naidoo
  • 11. regen
  • 12. hermann

S'NIX - nothingness - is not nothing. nothingness is everywhere, even where there is nothing. nothingness is a condition. The working title of the album was water, since so much on the cd began on the water. and water is something intangible too. you can feel it, touch it, but not hold it, unless it's frozen. songs are a little like stories that have become liquid, sensations and feelings. some have been defrosted from the eternal ice, but most fell like dewdrops onto my consciousness and became songs. for me this meant dwelling a while in nothingness and losing sight of orientation, if not the destination. when you then "wake up" and really arrive right where you want to dream and listen, it's quite astonishing; or not.

hubert von goisern
salzburg, april 2008

HUBERT VON GOISERN - S'NIX : The luxuriance of nothingness

Text: Bernhard Flieher | Photo: © Jürgen Skarwan

Hubert von GoisernThe nothingness of which Hubert von Goisern speaks resembles a condition of mental weightlessness. "You sit there and wait and nothing around you reaches you." It is the waiting for the moment where thoughts and ideas form to become songs. They are the phases that when viewed from outside present a nothingness, an emptiness. "You're not doing anything," say those who meet him during such phases. No good. Nothing seizable. And nothing really definable either. But for Hubert von Goisern these phases are the greatest and most significant, the most substantive - "apart from love".

"S'Nix", the "nothingness" that gives Hubert von Goisern's new album its name can be compared to a full glass that waits only for the last drops to bring it to overflowing. Or in musical terms: without that nothingness there can still be there so much that nothing happens. At least nothing that can be put onto an album.

The songs of the album have just finished being mixed, as Hubert von Goisern - at night of course - talks of nothingness. The results of this nothingness have just been coming out of the speakers.

Twelve songs have developed between hard rock, soft, affectionate thoughtfulness and worldly profundity. It is - measured by the luxuriance of the forms of expression and the intensity, with which this music, but above all Hubert von Goisern's voice overwhelm even on the first listening - his best work.

Where the journey should lead was implied even before the casting off of the ship in June last year, the ship with which south eastern Europe was explored on the Linz Danube Tour. Barely a year ago Hubert von Goisern presented his new band at a benefit concert in Salzburg. He let the young group push forward into his old songs. Together they dashed off. Amplifiers on, full steam ahead. On two conditions: "I needed a band who could give new life to the old songs, but who also had the potential to dare to try new things." The choice proved to be perfect.

The first part of the Linz Danube Tour was not about satisfying a faithful fan base with happy memories and reflections. It was about conquering foreign terrain with a powerful sound, with a universal, but unrecognisable language. In so doing neither were subtleties roughly planed, nor the Goiserer's inner alpine heritage ignored.

Those who listen to the first distorted chords of the new album, who feel the pressing impatience with which the rock number Showtime lets rip can guess what has brewed in the belly of the ship in barely a year - surrounded by heavy iron, which of course nonetheless moves delicately across the water.

As often is the case on his journeys, Hubert von Goisern "very naïvely" used the time on the ship to allow new things to develop - both interpersonal and artistic. Just wait and see. From mutual sounding out quickly came a deep trust - and a rich sound, one that the Goiserer has not previously made during his career. The deep trust in the working strengths were particularly noticeable in the studio a few weeks after the return from the water.

For the first time Hubert von Goisern did not come to the studio recordings "with finished ideas that would then be implemented by the musicians". This time the songs grew out of long sessions, as a quasi continuation of the ship music. Melodies imposed themselves, were orbited and discarded once more. This process also prompted an intense contact with the voice. Extremely natural and close, so even breathing can be heard, is how Hubert von Goisern's voice reaches us. Soundmaster Wolfgang Spannberger made recordings in a concrete industrial hall in order to reach this sound. Thus developed a true-to-life sound, a dialogue between and pushing and breathing freely.

The songs on S'Nix overwhelm you - no matter whether as rock numbers or ballads - with their density. And they surprise with the courage with which even the rock numbers go far beyond the previously known cosmos. But the subtleties that make Hubert von Goisern's work both timeless and geographically unclassifiable are never lost, even in the really loud, hard moments.

Being without location was also the source of these songs. In many phases they are of the style in which one travels on a ship. Such a journey requires calmness as it is sometimes somewhat tough. But without episodes of impatience, of irritated waiting, this calmness would not result in such an intense experience.

The songs on S'Nix that drive forwards, the rocky ones and the restrained ones breathe the rhythm of this journey. So for example they tell with impatience of Leben (Living) and Weltuntergang (Armageddon) and Auseinandertreiben (Drifting Apart). There is anthemic yodelling (Sieger (Winner)). Love is confirmed in great peace (Die Liab (Love)) and great breathlessness (Haut & Haar (Skin & Hair)). Herschaun (Looking) is the one song with clear musical reference to the region explored the previous year. In the collage of the legendary radio broadcast of the World Cup game between Austria and Switzerland reporter Heribert Meisel becomes a rapper (Rotz & Wasser (Snot & Water)). And at the end we simply float away in the instrumental (Hermann). To somewhere.

All the songs take their time. They roll out wide - both in form and content - partly each for their own, but certainly as a whole. But they never lose their direction. By way of example - by their running time alone - the eight minute long (Regen (Rain)) and the nine minute long Siagst as (Do you see).

On Siagst as - accompanied by Xavier Naidoo - we next come across a ballad about a certainty: "After every long night / Comes the light again". A soft, soulful carpet of sound is then dominated by a yearning trumpet. Time and again this song develops towards an ending, only to change the tempo of the music and the intensity of the voices. Pushing and breathing freely or waiting and continuing, or hoping and fearing. The Goiserer's expedition by ship is audible here, his most significant, current source of inspiration. It is palpable in the impenetrability with which the band play together as a whole, as well as in the correlation between relaxed confidence and impatient uncertainty: Siagst as is a song which grows from nothing to sublime beauty, which for all its thoughtfulness develops the wild sucking power of a whirlpool.