You may recall Danielle De Picciotto from her collaborations with founding Einstürzende Neubauten member Alexander Hacke under the name hackedepicciotto and their album titled 'The Current' which I reviewed last year. Based in Berlin, De Picciotto also sings with Crime & The City Solution and Space Cowboys, as well as exhibiting her artwork internationally and releasing books. She co- initiated the Berlin Love Parade in 1989 and “The Ocean Club” together with Gudrun Gut. 'The Element Of Love' is her third solo album after 'Tacoma' and 'Deliverance'. Her compositions on this album are a mixture of spoken word, electronic soundscapes and melancholic violin harmonies moving from experimental sounds to mystical melodies. The album reflects the broken heart of our society, which has almost destroyed our planet thanks to corruption but also reminds us, that: “We who fly to the moon and have Einstein’s theory, Truly underestimate our own glory.”

One cannot listen to 'The Element Of Love' without thinking of Laurie Anderson and her (seemingly) stream of consciousness style of storytelling over an electronic music background. (They both play violin in performance, albeit a little different from each other.) The twelve tracks on the album pass very quickly, not necessarily because they're very short, but more because they're very engaging. The opener, "Sea Of Stars" sets the tone for what's to come as Danielle speculates about life on other planets over a background of violin melancholia. You can almost picture an astronomical documentary playing on the screen. A somewhat more cosmic musical background is employed for "The Miracle Of The Dead Trees," with a fairly positive verbal message. Lots of industrial noise on "Solitude" with a melodic wordless vocal, like a siren singing in a sea of debris. On "Beautiful Creatures" Danielle opines a litany of pop culture references concerning humanity's potential as well as its folly with animal sounds in the background. "The Element Of Love" title track is a bittersweet violin-led instrumental with rich melodic content.


Finally, we have a somewhat solemn instrumental ("The Decline of Western Civilization") consisting primarily of violins and synthesizers and a beat, yet there is hope in it. If you're good with spoken word (instead of the usual sung lyrics) you will probably enjoy this album very much, and if you're a Laurie Anderson fan, you will probably enjoy it all the more. There are also a couple of videos associated with the album you should check out on Danielle's Bandcamp site. The album's release date is February 14 of this year, and the vinyl is limited to 500 copies. 'The Element Of Love' is magickal, in the truest sense of the word.