Name: Anchor and Burden
Members: Alexander Dowerk, Markus Reuter, Asaf Sirkis, Bernhard Wöstheinrich
Interviewees: Alexander Dowerk, Bernhard Wöstheinrich
Nationality: German, Israeli (Asaf Sirkis)
Current release: Anchor and Burden's new album Kosmonautik Pilgrimage is out now.

If you enjoyed this interview with Anchor and Burden and would like to find out more about the band, visit their official website. The quartet is also on Facebook.

To keep reading, we recommend our interview with Anchor and Burden and our conversations with band members Markus Reuter and Bernhard Wöstheinrich.



Tell me a bit, about your current instruments and tools, please. In which way do they support creative exchange and collaborations with others? Are there obstacles and what are potential solutions towards making collaborations easier?

Alexander: Markus and me are playing our Touch Guitars S8 instruments on Kosmonautik Pilgrimage. These guitars have a huge tonal and expressive range. We can easily change from a bass to a rhythm or lead role and even cover several of those functions at the same time. It opens up a wide range of collaborative possibilities as we can adapt to any situation and provide what is needed for the music.

Each string is being recorded and processed separately, which leads to my playing on its own already sounding like several people playing. Contrary to most people’s core idea of the touch guitar, that is to play multiple parts, like a bass and melody part, at the same time, I’m more interested in orchestration and getting a transparent sound. For example. on many pieces on Kosmonautik Pilgrimage I’m playing chords with wide intervals.

The strings are processed separately and are routed to separate FX and amp chains. The chords will then sound like 2 or more instruments playing on cue which gives the improvised music an orchestrated quality that occasionally sounds like it’s been written. This gives me the power to drastically shape and change the music.

That being said there’s also a lot of 2 part improvisation going on with polyrhythmic structures functioning as a framework underneath. It’s something I’ve been practicing and exploring for a long time and I particularly honed my skills for the latest Anchor and Burden sessions.

What are some of the things you learned from your collaborations over the years?

Alexander: I learned to widen my awareness and listening skills, to express myself and at the same time better acknowledge and understand what my musical partner is doing.

I also learned a lot from working with Markus. Musically as well as in terms of other aspects of music production.

Do you need to have a good relationship with your collaborator? Or can there be a benefit to working with someone you may not get along with on a personal level?

Alexander: This world is so full of positive, kind and creative artists that it would be shameful to waste my time on negative and toxic people. It doesn’t mean my collaborators need to be close friends, though.

I’m approaching collaborative encounters with openness and acceptance. The Guitar Craft aphorism “Assume the virtue” is a good guidance to that matter.

Some artists feel as though the creative process should not be a democratic one. What are your thoughts on the interaction with other musicians, the need for compromise and the decision making process?

Alexander: There is no general rule for this. It largely depends on the project setup, the desired outcome and the group dynamic.

A democratic approach can be very tiresome in a band context and cost months to years of productivity. A leadership role, at least in some areas, is extremely helpful to drive a collaboration. For me it’s about the flow of energy, setting the direction and trust. If one person has strong ideas and a clear vision, it will encourage the reaction of the other project members.

In Anchor and Burden we are democratic during the process of creating and recording the music. Everybody can play whatever they feel fitting in the moment. But the production and marketing aspect is directed by Markus and me. The others have trust in our decisions as we have in their musical skills and taste.

What's your take on cross-over collaborations between different genres?

Alexander: The term "cross-over" has little meaning for me today. I understand that it was required back in the 80-90s to describe the fusion of separate genres, such as rock and rap, metal and hardcore, etc., But nowadays music is so diverse that even finding one fitting genre for our band is a tiresome task.

Our music knows no boundaries, we break the line between genres multiple times in one song. The downside of this post-genre music is that it's hard to position it for a fitting audience and press reviews.

When did you first start getting interested in musical improvisation?

Alexander: Improvisation is a part of life for me. I remember that I was mostly left unimpressed by the music that was playing on German radio stations and already as a small child I was creating music by singing and making sounds.

When I picked up the piano and later the electric guitar I learned written pieces. But as soon as I mastered the score I tended to play it by heart and just pretend to be reading the score. I would then do variations and deviations from the written piece or invent new phrases.

My practise routine always had a component of free playing as my goal was to be able to freely express myself.

Which artists, approaches, albums or performances involving prominent use of improvisation captured your imagination in the beginning?

Alexander: Shakti with John Mclaughlin certainly was an inspiration to me in regards to improvisation. I love all their albums and want to point out the Remember Shakti double live album in particular.



Deep emotional music, jawdropping technique and an great amount of communication and listening between the musicians.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to improvisation? Do you see yourself as part of a tradition or historic lineage?

Alexander: My personal goal for improvisation is to create “instant” compositions that don’t necessarily sound like they are improvised. Personally I prefer to listen to composed music with fine tuned pieces and great sounding productions. I want to bring this quality to my own improvisations.

Structuring the improvisation itself can also help to achieve this goal, but with Anchor and Burden we don’t really work with predefined cues or parts. It’s thanks to the communication and listening happening between us that there are song-like structures evolving.

For the pieces of Kosmonautik Pilgrimage we only had one predefined concept: Bernhard starts and builds a mood on which we will join later. The piece “Secret Laboratory” illustrates this perfectly.

I'm not following any particular tradition or school of improvisation, but I have a couple of tactics and strategies of which I'm sure other people also use. During the moment of playing I’m deciding from a couple of tactics for the particular phase such as:

Initiate / Lead: Initiate a new phase with a new idea. Boldly stick to the idea and let the other react to it.
Support / Orchestrate: Support and orchestrate an idea of other players. Help to build the mood and quality of the already existing idea.
Counter / Disrupt: Consciously play an idea that contradicts or disrupts what is currently happening. This can even be violent and destructive at times.
Release / Hold: Stop playing. Release the tension and let the music calm down or hold the tension by introducing space and silence in unexpected moments.
Create a driving, rhythmically catching motion.
Create a disrupted, rhythmically disjointed motion.

In addition there are more long term strategies I will add to these tactics like:

Increase tension till the music escalates. ”The Core is Organic” is a good demonstration of this.
Keep the tension, extend the idea.
Decrease tension till the music is in a floating, calm state.
Focus on a set of tonal and rhythmic material. Create variations within boundaries. “Self Assembly” is a good example of this strategy.
Move forward, don't settle on any fixed tonal or rhythmic material.

What was your own learning curve / creative development like when it comes to improvisation - what were challenges and breakthroughs?

Alexander: One of the most challenging aspects is to be able to listen to the other musicians while creating and listening to your own parts at the same time. There is so much complexity happening that it requires a lot of brain power and focus. Every moment requires decisions to be made which can drastically change the direction of the music.

Around 2013 I spent one year in Berlin playing only improvised music to evolve as a musician and break my musical constraints. I played with many different musicians at the time and I took care to record most of the sessions. Listening back to those sessions and comparing them with what I heard and felt while playing them was and still is extremely helpful to improve.

When you're improvising, does it actually feel like you're inventing something on the spot – or are you inventively re-arranging patterns from preparations, practise or previous performances?

Bernhard: Now it would be the moment for me to ask back what is be considered as the opposite of improvisation, and what improvisation would mean at all.

When we are talking about inventing something on the spot or re-arranging something it all points to material that seems to be fixed and just would need to be repeated or reproduced in some form. And that is something that certainly exists.  

There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you? In which way is it different between your solo work and collaborations?

Alexander: The ideal state is to have a life that inspires you or enough trouble and discomfort that you want to express it, plus the means of production, space and time to put these into a form of art. The means and space can be acquired through work over the years.

Having enough time will be a constant struggle and requires you to prioritize your creative work over your family, friends or other activities. As Markus once said: “Time is not something you have. Time is something you take.”

As far as the moment of creation itself is concerned, a state of focus and awareness certainly helps. Sometimes though, a mind overflowing with emotions and the will for relentless expression can lead to even more interesting artistic results.

What's your take on how your upbringing and cultural surrounding have influenced your sonic preferences?

Alexander: My cultural upbringing did leave me wanting something new, unknown, breaking the common ground. I was never fully satisfied with the music I heard around me and often thought there was more to music than the songs everybody knew.

Later my brother, and me were almost competing in who would find the more obscure and special albums. I think this shaped my love of exploration and otherworldly sounds and music.

How do you see the relationship between sound, space and composition?

Alexander: Composition is the structuring of sound and space. It can happen decoupled from the performance and recording as its own process or, as it’s the case for our band, happen instantaneously.