“Jean-Yves [Tola] and Pascal [Humbert] have income outside of music,” Edwards points out about two key Horsepower mates. “Jean-Yves and his wife have a horse farm where they raise jumping horses, and that keeps them quite busy — and Pascal’s wife is a teacher in Grand Junction. But I don’t really have any other choice than to play, and when we decided to take a break because we’d been on the road too long, I had time on my hands.”
Edwards made the most of it. “I kept writing and kept recording, and it turned into something I wasn’t expecting,” he says. In 2002, Glitterhouse, the imprint that issues 16 Horsepower platters in Europe, placed Edwards’s creations on a CD dubbed Wovenhand, and he went on the road to support it. Today, Edwards gets plenty of help reproducing the Wovenhand sound from bassist Shane Trost, mandolinist/pump organist Daniel McMahon and drummer Ordy Garrison, who’s also pounded the skins for Tarantella and Slim Cessna’s Auto Club.
More recently, Wovenhand whipped up Blush , a CD already available in Europe that compiles music Edwards wrote for Ultima Vez, a Belgian dance company. The offering will eventually make its way to the States, joining Olden , a roundup of 16 Horsepower’s earliest material that is presently earmarked for a September release on Jetset Records.
Hearing the Horsepower demos for the first time in ages was an odd experience for Edwards. “It was interesting how much my voice has changed, how much younger I sounded, and how much quicker we played everything,” he says. “But I’m much happier now, and hopefully just better at what I do.” — Roberts
Reprinted from Westword Music Showcase
Musicians
David Eugene Edwards: vocals, banjola, mandolin, guitar
Guest musicians:
Ordy Garrison: drums on “White Bird” and “Another White Bird”
Daniel McMahon: piano on “Animalitos (Ain’t No Sunshine)”
Track List:
Cripplegate (Standing On Glass)
Animalitos (Ain’t No Sunshine)
White Bird
Snake Bite
My Russia (Standing On Hands)
The Way
Aeolian Harp (Under The World)
Your Russia (Without Hands)
Another White Bird
Story And Pictures