Xmal Deutschland’s Anja Huwe Unveils her Gothic Expressionist Video for “Rabenschwarz” (Raven Black)

Wir wissen nicht, was morgen wird
Wir ziehen durch Zeit und Raum

In global mythologies, the raven emerges as a figure of paradox, weaving threads of transformation and intellect across Norse sagas, Native American tales, and Celtic lore. This enigmatic bird, at once a trickster and a sage, embodies the duality of creation and destruction, offering insights into the empowerment derived from wisdom, adaptability, and the mystical. From Odin’s feathered emissaries to the Tlingit creator, the raven’s shadow dances over the collective human psyche, urging us to embrace the complex interplay of light and shadow within ourselves and the world around us.

This Friday Sacred Bones celebrate the parallel releases of Xmal Deutschland’s Early Singles 1981-1982 (including two bonus tracks), and the debut solo album from Xmal Deutschland’s inimitable front-woman Anja Huwe, Codes. To whet our appetites, Anja Huwe celebrates the mystical power of the shadowy corvid with Rabenschwarz, a spectacular new single, and an Expressionist video from Codes.

“The main theme is the raven, a classic symbol for black (raven black), which stands for empowerment and is also a symbolic transmission of wisdom,” explains Huwe. The raven also stands for the rediscovery of mystical paths. The emerging egg represents fear but also stands for rebirth.

Directed by Anja Huwe and Stefan Heintzenberg, the video for Rabenschwarz (raven black) ties in with the album artwork, inspired by a private collection of photos from the late 1920s and public domain film footage. The clip also includes video bootleg footage from early Xmal Deutschland shows, as well as textual collages and text boards, created by Anja Huwe.

“We combined old film footage—such as The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) and White Zombie (1932)—with additional material filmed in the basement of a derelict bunker in Hamburg,” Huwe explains. We’ve intercut all the subjects with private outdoor footage filmed at Hamburg Harbor, Brooklyn, and New York City.”

Early Singles (1981-1982) is a map of their foundational movements, just seconds before takeoff. The band’s pursuit of something greater is palpable with this release, a reflection of a time that introduced accessibility to new means of making music following the onset of punk. This reissue includes two bonus tracks; Kaelbermarsch (originally from the compilation Lieber Zuviel Als Zuwenig) and a gritty live version of Allein (originally from the compilation Nosferatu Festival), which is shared online today along with a video montage of footage from this era of the band’s career.

Pre-order ‘Early Singles (1981-1982) here.

Initially inspired by the diary entries of Moshe Shnitzki, who, at the age of 17, left his home in 1942 to live in the cavernous White Russian forests as a partisan, Codes is about the human experience and what extremes can do to an individual. “The result is a poetic, musical cosmos that encompasses the following themes: forest, fear, pain, loss, violence, and loneliness but also beauty, longing, hope and the will to survive,” Huwe explains.

The thematic extremities cause an erraticism to Codes—a passing thunderstorm, a cyclonic burst of nature’s force—but one that exudes anticipation amidst the chill. With elegant production by Mur and Huwe and mixing and mastering by Jon Caffery (Joy Division, Gary Numan, Einstürzende Neubauten) epic builds crash and disseminate, the sleek synthesised drones of sound even feel claustrophobic at times.

Pre-order Codes here through Sacred Bones Records.