Ernst Molden & Sigrid Horn

"Sigrid Horn and Ernst Molden, singer and singer, poetess and poet, separated by one to two generations in age. Both have attracted attention with their songs, both have been working for years in different, albeit related artistic dialects on their respective poetic counter-worlds. Now also together: the cycle KUAZ VUAN WEDA brings together songs written jointly for the first time, an artistic encounter to be anticipated with excitement." This is how Ernst Molden puts it in his own words. Music was not directly bestowed upon him. As the son of author Hanna Molden and the famous publisher Fritz Molden, Molden wandered through the trendy venues of the city center in the 1980s like a dandy with a cane. He later chuckled about that time, saying he would have just been an artist without a work back then. Soon, he emerged as a man of letters. With plays like DER BASILISK (premiered at the Schauspielhaus) and novels like DIE KROKODILSDAME and AUSTREIBEN, he quickly made a name for himself. His love for music initially remained unrequited. It took a long time for it to come around. The early albums from 1996 did not give much hope. But in 2008, it finally happened. Ernst Molden found his musical voice. With the double release WIEN and FOAN, he catapulted himself into the heart of a new scene, where dialect was sung without the 'Austropop' label. From then on, it was a steady rise, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The subtlety of albums like HO RUGG, SCHDROM, YEAH, and ZIRKUS speaks for itself. Ernst Molden became, like his idol and friend Willi Resetarits, an integrative figure in the scene. Through a variety of projects and collaborations, including with Ursula Strauss, Christopher Seiler, Der Nino aus Wien, and Willi Resetarits, his personality has beautifully unfolded since then. On the label BaderMoldenRecordings, which he founded with Charlie Bader, he early on promoted talents like Sigrid Horn and Anna Mabo. It should not go unmentioned that since 2018, Ernst Molden has been translating Asterix comics into Viennese dialect.

Sigrid Horn, originally from the Mostviertel region of Lower Austria, has sung her way into the professional local music scene through the protest song contest. Her dialect debut album SOG I BIN WEG was already of captivating beauty. "Deck mi zua, I leg mi in dreg, waun ana frogd, wo i bin, sog i bin weg." she proposed something dark with her bright voice right in the first song of the album. This reminded one of a dictum by the great American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, which goes: "I like beautiful melodies, telling me terrible things." Horn's musical arrangements oscillate between dizzying sparseness and engaging subtlety. Horn's songs breathe the spirit of the 1970s. They tell of the personal but also carry political undertones. Linguistically, she is fixated on the Mostviertel dialect. The dialect has the advantage, she says, that "when singing, there are more possibilities with the vowels and consonants than in standard German. The Mostviertel sound provides a different vocal placement, different vowel colors." Despite all the fragrant "Öpfebam" and "Mostbianblia," Horn developed a sense of alienation in her homeland amidst the picturesque landscape. This benefits her perspective on the phenomena that appear vaguely in the Mostviertel "Nöwi." What does Horn expect from good music? "It must shake me in a beautiful way. It simply has to move me." As songwriters on equal footing, Horn and Molden met during their concept album 45 JAHRE NEIN ZUM AKW. For KUAZ VUAN WEDA, they are composing new songs together for the first time. One can be excited. (Samir H. Köck)