Konstantin Wecker founded his Sturm & Klang label for artists like Miriam Hanika. So after a long period of lull, more numerous singer-songwriters who have taken over the baton from him and who hardly fit major and alternative labels. In the case of some pieces from Hanika’s third album “Wurzeln & Flügel”, which she is now presenting in Hall X of the Gasteig, one could even imagine the authorship of the old master.
With its hymn-like melody and gentle pathos, the title track already sounds exactly like an alarm clock piece, as does the anti-war song “The Same Old Song”, the protest against bureaucratic depersonalization “Numerical Children” or the call to imagination “Dreamers always fall something” fall exactly into the grid of the eternal pacifist and anarchist in both text and music. Even the fact that Hanika sees herself more as a philosopher than a political singer-songwriter (“I think you could replace all the politicians with philosophers”) puts her even more in the corner of the late Wecker.
The selection of excellent companions also unites old and young. For her twelve-piece ensemble project, Hanika has brought not only string quartet, harp and horn, but also the jazz cracks Peter Cudek on bass, Simon Popp on drums and Paul Brändle on guitar. Of course, the similarities end with their own instruments, quite apart from the bell-like singing voice. Hanika not only plays the piano and cor anglais, she also flirts with being the “world’s only singer-songwriter” who also studied the oboe and plays like a virtuoso.
An instrument that could not actually work, as she says. In two instrumentals to start with, she certainly proves the opposite. And also in the barefoot performance, with her moderations as in the thematic focal points of the albums home and death, she convinces with her own touch.