About
Anchor and Burden is an uncompromising progressive avant-garde doom-jazz post-metal band which has their own style of collective instant composition that defies the norms of creation. They create monolithic doom behemoths only to tear them into shreds with boundless energy in the next moment.
The two 8-string touch guitarists Markus Reuter and Alexander Dowerk conjure a wide array of moods with their unique instruments: From ethereal whispers out of sci-fi realms to cerebral virtuosity that fractures the very psyche unto crushing metal brutality that leaves the listener gasping for their breath.
Bernhard Wöstheinrich weaves a web of synths and self-modulating percussive machinery, an arcane undercurrent beneath the towering monoliths of guitar, as if sentient space stations traverse the void.
Drummer Asaf Sirkis, the virtuoso master of rhythm, wields his jazz and Indian polyrhythms not merely to forge a pulsating heartbeat, but also to break up and shift the quartet's music into unexpected places with his complex hyper jazz rhythms.
This certainly isn’t easy music to consume at all, but it will satisfy the bold appetite of those who are in love with adventurous music and unrelenting artistic expression.
Line up
Alexander Paul Dowerk
Touch guitar
Alexander Paul Dowerk (born Kaiserslautern, Germany,1983) is a music producer, composer and touchguitarist from Germany. The Berlin-based musician combines the sound and energy of modern, progressive metal with the compositorial depth of contemporary music. The result is a complex and powerful interplay of body and mind.
www.alexanderdowerk.com
Markus Reuter
Touch Guitars and Soundscapes
Markus Reuter (born Lippstadt, Germany, 1972) is a German multi-disciplinary musician, composer, record producer and instrument designer.
Reuter's work as recording artist, solo performer and collaborator spans (and frequently fuses) electrophonic loop music, contemporary classical music, progressive and art rock, industrial music, world jazz, jazz fusion, pop songs and pure improvisation. Over the course of a two-decade career, he has been a member of multiple bands, ensembles and projects (including centrozoon, Stick Men, Tuner, The Crimson ProjeKct and Europa String Choir) as well as a solo artist.
www.markusreuter.com
Bernhard Wöstheinrich
Keyboards and Electronics
Bernhard Wöstheinrich (born Herzebrock, Germany, 1968) is a sound artist, improviser and painter living in Berlin. Bernhard elicits meaning from abstraction in electronic music and painting. He has studied graphic design and has created an an eclectic body of work in both graphics and music.
redundantrocker.com
Asaf Sirkis
drums and percussion
Born in Petah-Tikva, Israel, 1969, Asaf started his professional career as a drummer in the late 80's and played with some of Israel's Jazz luminaries such at Harold Rubin and Alber Beger. A few years after the recording of his first solo album 'One Step Closer' Asaf relocated to the Netherlands, France and finally settled in London around 1999 where he soon became one of the most active Jazz drummers around. Asaf has been leading his own bands and projects such as 'Asaf Sirkis & the Inner Noise' - a band of an unusual line up of church organ, guitar and drum as well as the Asaf Sirkis Trio. He has been touring worldwide and recorded over 100 albums as a sideman, collaborator and as a leader.
www.asafsirkis.compast members
