Album "Windschatten"

Anna Buchegger puts a contemporary spin on alpine folklore

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Matches Music, Alex Gotter)

Anna Buchegger caught the attention of a wide audience three years ago as the winner of "Starmania" - today only her intense voice reminds us of this. On her debut album "Windschatten", she ventures into the geographical history of the Tennengau region and combines this with personal memories and an original form of contemporary alpine pop.

Abtenau, a community of 6000 people in the Salzburg district of Hallein. Known for former professional skier Matthias Lanzinger, wonderful mountain landscapes and the golden voice of Anna Buchegger. The 25-year-old can certainly be described as a musical prodigy who has been persistently honing her skills since early childhood. She learned to play the hammered dulcimer at the age of six and her sister introduced her to the guitar a little later. The Buchegger-Dirndln then caused a sensation in the district. At ten, she learned the art of playing the piano before finally committing herself to music in her later childhood and early teenage years. Buchegger reached the semi-finals of the casting show "Die große Chance" when she was just twelve, and three years later she tried her hand at "Herz von Österreich" - still unsuccessfully.

Culturally and culturally
The big breakthrough came during the pandemic. With a rousing version of her self-written ballad "Ease", she beat Fred Owusu in the 2021 "Starmania" final, but was not entirely happy with the musical path she had chosen. Buchegger has always been more than just the "casting show winner". Performances at Salzburg's Haus für Mozart, his own songs, rousing cover versions and a veritable love of jazz bear witness to this, yet the never-ending search for a musical identity remains. Many experiments and "trial and error" moments later, the Salzburg native finds something that has never existed before. Contemporary pop music, mixed with alpine folklore, without any politically interpreted stink. On the album "Windschatten", Buchegger finds a space for folk culture, in which "culture" is at the center and the ethnic is mixed in in a completely unsuspicious and utilitarian way.

In the individual songs, she takes us on a journey into her personal upbringing and life and existence in the rural and natural Innergebirg. It is about breaking down prejudices, tearing down invisible borders and the desire to refute common stereotypes in order to proclaim a cultural and human togetherness. Buchegger soars to vocally light heights, sits down at the quiet piano, lets synthetic electro beats waft over folkloristic song structures and longs to feel and experience things in the lyrics. In the title track, she pleads for the real, raw and authentic. "You always try to show your best side in life and that often gives you a lot of advantages in life. But the exciting stories are to be found elsewhere. You find them in the ugly sides that everyone tries to hide as much as possible. It takes a lot of effort to show your ugly side and own up to it."

Putting her finger in the wounds
In "Lackschuh", she invokes the rugged physicality of her native Tennengau region with a dark melody and orchestral additions, allowing herself to fall into almost threatening worlds of sound. Early on in the album, "Vaterland" is a deliberately broad dialect memorial for community and tolerance in a world torn from all hinges, which seems to be permeated only by distance, suspicion and aversion to one another. Buchegger puts her finger on wounds and does not shy away from taking a closer look at difficult topics. In the intense song "Fisch", the artist deals with care and tames the horse from unusual angles. Where are the thanks and recognition for the aunts, cousins and grandmothers on whose shoulders heavy burdens lie? And is it okay to secretly hope for death, because the spirit has long since left the dying person's starving human shell?

"Windschatten" is an album of ambivalences and crossovers. Every story is human, no two songs are the same and there is a special kind of innovative spirit everywhere. Easy listening is definitely different, Buchegger's music sometimes has to be worked at and elevated because it doesn't shy away from dissonances and spherical ambient surfaces. In terms of content, she deliberately deals with edgy and uncomfortable topics that are usually swept under the carpet. Self-responsibility, local color and emancipation, with Salzburg yodeling, alpine dulcimer and a new, inclusive folk culture - this makes "Windschatten" a unique piece in the local music landscape that you should get involved with.

Live show in Vienna
On October 26, Anna Buchegger will present her new album "Windschatten" at the Vienna Konzerthaus. Tickets and further information about the event are still available at www.oeticket.com.