Attwenger
High-velocity Alpine folk smashed into industrial hip-hop. Distorted accordion and frantic drums create a raw, dialect-heavy sound that is both ancient and futuristic.
High-velocity Alpine folk smashed into industrial hip-hop. Distorted accordion and frantic drums create a raw, dialect-heavy sound that is both ancient and futuristic.
Attwenger sounds like a village wedding that has been hijacked by a punk band and a glitch-hop producer. The foundation is the button accordion, but it is rarely played straight; instead, it is fed through distortion pedals and effects until it growls like a jagged electric guitar. This is paired with drumming that oscillates between traditional polka rhythms and the hard-hitting, repetitive snap of boom-bap hip-hop.
What makes them truly distinctive is their use of the Upper Austrian dialect. They treat language as a percussive instrument, chopping up regional slang into rhythmic mantras and rapid-fire raps. It is a sonic collision where the rural past of the Alps meets the abrasive, electronic present of the Linz industrial scene, resulting in something John Peel famously described as a 'general noise' that is impossible to ignore.
Start with the album 'Dog' for a perfect entry point into their electro-polka-slang aesthetic. It captures their ability to be both catchy and confrontational, offering short, sharp songs that showcase their unique blend of folk tradition and avant-garde experimentation.
Attwenger (formed 1990) is a musical duo from Linz, Austria. The group is made up of drummer Markus Binder and button accordion player Hans-Peter Falkner; both members also sing. Attwenger's music is an unusual combination of Upper Austrian folk music and hip-hop, with lyrics sung (and rapped) in Upper Austrian dialect. Falkner often plays his accordion through effects pedals to give his instrument a distorted timbre similar to that of an electric guitar. Binder sometimes uses drum machines. The band has released nine studio albums, with drum being the most recent in 2021, and more recently Binder composed the soundtrack for the movie Club Zero by Jessica Hauser, which won the Best Soundtrack Award at the European Film Awards 2023. The duo has toured Europe, Zimbabwe (1993), Siberia, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Malaysia (1995). In 2003 they won an Amadeus Austrian Music Award, in the category "FM4 Alternative Act des Jahres" (alternative act of the year). Of the group, the noted BBC DJ John Peel (1939-2004) said, "I have no idea what it's all about, but I like the general noise a great deal." Attwenger worked together with Fred Frith, the Boban Marković Orkestar, and Austrian hip hop group Texta.
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