© 2025 Danielle de Picciotto Photography by: Sylvia Steinhäuser
Announcing upcoming album “LIchtung” The new album marks the point that Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke end a period of nomadic life. After 14 years they chose to set down roots and settle in the outer edges of Berlin, close to nature with fields not far from their garden and it’s this “turning point” or “Zeitenwende” that they explore in the new track, an anthem that builds with each verse into a sparking joy.
They explain, “The album is called LICHTUNG, which means a clearing, a place in which you can suddenly see the light in a dark forest, a place to rest. As the world seems to be spinning ever more quickly into a place of madness, being in this quiet place helps us think about how to deal with it all.”
The neighbourhood is close to where Alexander grew up and, crucially, where age 14, a mere 12 months before he joined Einstürzende Neubauten, he began experimenting with electronics. In a perfect circle, this being the first music he’s released since departing Neubauten, both he and Danielle found themselves experimenting with electronics as well as with their usual composition structure, and language. The eight new songs are characterised by a new, elegiac form, with long, interconnected pieces that suggest a larger composition, and the album’s lyrics, written by Danielle, are entirely in German for the first time.
For Danielle, an American who had already lived in Berlin for several decades, (co-founding the city’s famed Love Parade) before setting off on her world tour with Alexander, this was a deliberate challenge that forced her to engage intensively for the first time with the German language and its historical connotations – a stark contrast to the freedom she had grown accustomed to in writing in English. Danielle explains, “I usually read and write in English, but this time I told myself: you have to make it happen: an entire album in German language and syntax. A suite of songs in the language of my adopted home.”
Looking back, it becomes clear just how much hackedepicciotto, since their inception as a duo, have dedicated themselves to a larger narrative that is as personal as it is romantic, and at the same time worldly and introspective.
LICHTUNG is out on 10 July 2026 on limited-edition candy coloured vinyl, CD and digitally.
Pre-order the album HERE