With his 15th album Sicker Man is coming full circle by spiritually returning to Eastern Westphalia, the area, shrouded in legend, where he was born and spent his formative years. The local mythological figure of the SPÖKENKIEKER is situated in the mystical depths of the Teutoburg Forest and serves both as name giver and patron saint for this journey to the initial starting point. Following Derrida’s concept of Hauntology, which describes a pervasive sense in which contemporary culture is haunted by the „lost futures“ of modernity, Sicker Man is renewing his focus on advancing the development of his musical ideas by confronting the original source of his creative expressiveness. An attempt to carve out the textures that establish the presence of the past in the present, leaving behind a haunting echo.
The Spökenkieker is doomed to envision and predict the future because of his forefathers’ sins. His knowledge and acceptance of the past build the foundation and gateway for his ability to see what will happen in the future. In times where our ideas of the future seem like an echo of the past, the SPÖKENKIEKER is confronting the ghost of the real and keeps insisting that there are futures beyond postmodernity’s terminal time.
By integrating historical spoken word samples and a wider variety of instruments like Flutes and Saxophones, Sicker Man expands his sonic range and develops a unique and distinctive language of sound. Elements of Spiritual and Free Jazz, Orchestral Swing and Impressionism perfectly align with Dubstep Beats, Ambient Soundscapes and Electric Cello Noise, creating a temporal confusion that blurs the lines between memory and reality. A reappropriation of sound drawn from a collective unconsciousness, approximating the imprecise nature of memory itself. SPÖKENKIEKER’s 12 instrumental tracks unfold into an abundance of sound and electronic architectures always circling back to the singular tone of Sicker Man’s Cello.
Sicker Man’s SPÖKENKIEKER creates a sonic fiction that revitalizes the potential for a utopianism for the present age. The album will be out on blank records 2026 February 13.