When YEDM initially interviewed German darkwave powerhouse and multimedia artist Anne Wichmann mid-pandemic, we lined a number of matters, from the COVID lockdown to her movies to her typically “tough” psyche, however the truth that she had additionally made music along with her brother, guitarist Volker Wichmann, within the early 00s. The partnership presumably ended when Anne moved to Brooklyn from their native Hamburg, Germany. Now, nearly twenty years later, the duo have reunited (though they nonetheless dwell on completely different continents) to create SuperWAV, a stripped down rock mission that simply launched its second EP, aTypical.
Given Anne’s largely darkwave and electro background and the truth that the siblings seemingly had to make use of a variety of digital tech to create the music collectively on account of their bodily distance, SuperWAV is surprisingly sparse relating to digital musical components. They’re current, however the pair has been decidedly centered on brass tacks with each their debut EP, Parts, and the just-dropped aTypical. In accordance with Anne:
We wished the songs to be easy, direct and in your face. Principally: Let’s take out all the things that the track doesn’t want. Scale back it to pure guts! The theme of (persona) archetypes is a posh one, and its exploration is including a considerate layer to the music.
Regardless of the stripped-down, naked bones rock really feel to aTypical, it’s additionally actually true that it’s a really nuanced EP. One may count on nothing much less from Anne Wichmann and her blood family members. Every observe is called after one of many 5 persona archetypes; each the lyrics and music are supposed to be an interpretation of every one. “The Lover,” for instance, is tough and passionate and explores the outdated adage, “love is blind” within the lyrics, whereas “The Harmless” is filled with ambient echo and the lyrics talk about the inevitable destruction of innocence.
Dubbed “stoner rock” by the band themselves, followers of Anne’s former initiatives will battle to search out the connection to her outdated darkwave work however it’s there in refined methods. Whereas they wished to maintain the music on the punk fringe of put up punk or the minimal fringe of grunge, there are nonetheless components of drone and darkwave within the background manufacturing and tone of the album, respectively. SuperWAV’s first EP, 2018’s Parts had extra apparent connections to electronica, however the backing manufacturing, association and engineering of aTypical relied on that darkwave information from previous initiatives, based on Volker.
It’s a lot enjoyable to work collectively once more, and thrilling to search out new methods of collaborating throughout such a protracted distance. For ATYPICAL it looks like we picked up the place RAWJAW (the Wichmanns’ earlier band within the early 00s) ended – but discovering our personal sound of in the present day in each tune.
It doesn’t matter what you name this new Wichmann mission, followers will seemingly see the sister-brother duo going forwards and backwards over the strains of analog and digital in some ways because the proceed to develop the mission. It appears to be a focal point for each of them. Within the meantime, SuperWAV are constructing a brilliant wave of a discography and followers ought to count on the surprising from this dynamic musical duo.
aTypical is out now and could be streamed on Spotify.
