Hekate

Hekate started as an experimental atonal project in the early 90ies. We first played at universities and art schools on exhibitions. We started with five members. From those five members are still two left today the others have changed. The founders are Ingo Müller, guitar and percussion and myself. There were many changes during the years. Today there are Achim Weiler, medieval instruments and keyboards, Dirk Diederich, drums , Jörg Schwickerath, percussion. Achim engaged at a castle as an musican. Further he produce musical contributions for regional theatre plays in his little studio. Jörg plays in his own ambient band called Beam Team. Im supporting several bands live on stage and worked for my project Cascadeur. We love our name the goddess Hekate connects various characteristics, which we work out over the years. But the most important aspect is that Hekate belonged to many cultures, like the Romans, the Greek, Asia Minor…It symbolises the power of an archaic culture and stands for the old way. First we were an experimental group. We were influenced by industrial bands from the 80ies, like Einstürzende Neubauten and SPK, but also dark wave bands, like Joy Division, Devo, David Bowie, Klaus Nomi, Test Dept. But our influence goes from classical Folk to groups like Current 93, Death in June to our favourite Band Dead can Dance. We also like Moby, Massive Attack, Delirium and other Ambient Bands. During the last years we become interested in European history, old songs and legends. Furthermore we became more self-confident and found our own style. The main thing of the music are the percussions, connected with old melody lines and actually with modern clichés like electronically ambient sounds. We approach the most of our songs from ideaswe get from reading books, visiting European landscapes or by telling myths from friends. We choose most themes for songs by our instinct not for special reasons. One influence is certainly a movement of the young people in germany from the 20ies, called „Wandervogel“ . We are inspired by painters like Fidus, Franz Stassen and Furthermore we are interested in classical music e. g. Edward Grieg and Schubert. The world lost its magic. Now you can explain nearly everything through science. In former times a moon-darkness was a great wonder but today you know the scientific backgrounds. Where is space left for imagination and phantasy? Ancient men recived a lot of joys from nature. We can learn from ancient cultures about their power and forgotten rituals. We are living on the countryside in a cultural very important area. Besides the ancient places of whoreship of the Celts and Germans there are also sanctuarys from the roman conquerors. We are connected very close to nature and it is important for us to research and experience old rites and cultures. To play live is the best event for us. It is the fulfilment of all our work and creativity. In a live performance we see if a song can pass to the audience. To play live is really the best for our band. Rituals are very important for us before a live performance. A concert of Hekate has a spiritual level as it is dedicated to our ancestor and gods. “Du siehst mein Sohn, zum Raum wird hier die Zeit” (Richard Wagner, Parsifal 1882) A ritual helps to experience a cosmic principle and to use it on your way through life. At the moment we are using German smoke rituals at live performances. The smoke is a sign to the gods. The scent is their food. As we use mostly the taditional smokes we wake memories of holy times. We use herbs from our native country. There is a different smoke ritual for every season. Im collecting the herbs in our forests as the shamanes of our ancestors did it. So let us start…. Liebe und Licht Axel für My Space