Join Sex 14s on Monday, February 26th @ 10am to hear his recent interview with Academy Award and BAFTA-winning composer Volker Bertelmann, aka Hauschka.
Hauschka plays The Chapel in SF on February 29th.
Bertelmann is back as Hauschka, and his new album, Philanthropy (City Slang), lives up to its name. An occasion for celebration and reflection, it’s a carefully considered but jubilantly improvised response to recent years, with its philosophically-inclined but approachable and compassionate creator at the peak of his compositional powers. If “music be the food of love,” then, here it’s also food for thought. That’s surely a gift worth giving and, even more, receiving.
Bertelmann — whose extraordinary score for All Quiet On The Western Front won an Oscar in 2023 — uses his work not only to move people, whether emotionally or physically, but also to provoke. No one sounds like the Düsseldorf-based Hauschka, which he quite reasonably celebrates on Philanthropy by revisiting past habits. “I really loved how I worked in the beginning,” he smiles. “I wanted to connect with the time I first started.” Most of the record was recorded alone on his piano in his studio, beginning in the summer of 2022, though Bertelmann never restricts his use of his instrument to its keys. In addition, he employs a Turkish davul drum, as well as, more prominently than ever, synthesizers, not least a bass synth. There are also contributions from cellist Laura Wiek and violinist Karina Buschinger, as well as Múm’s drummer Samuli Kosminen.
