Meet the artists behind our upcoming compilation Sound Journeys: Switzerland, featuring emerging artists from the forefront of the Swiss experimental music scene. It has been compiled by producer, broadcaster and Nonclassical A&R Nick Luscombe following a visit to the country and research into the current activities of Swiss academic music.
“The aim of this compilation is to highlight the depth of creative approaches by experimental music artists and communities across Switzerland - from solo percussion and vocal based pieces, to ensemble compositions and electronics, ambient metal and data driven work. This is just the tip of a very substantial iceberg of incredible and innovative music being made throughout Switzerland today.” – Nick Luscombe
Cyril Bondi + d’incise
Using a combination of percussion, found objects and laptops, Cyril Bondi and d’incise have been playing together as experimental duo Diatribes since 2004. Having spent their early career exploring free jazz, noise, musique concrète and improvisation, the pair have developed a more introverted process based on their concept of ‘rational rituality’, creating music filled with detailed textures, repeated gestures, and frenzied pulses.
Vincent Ruiz
Double bassist, improviser and composer Vincent Ruiz is a Swiss musician based in Copenhagen. His music is meditative in quality, reflecting on patience, stillness, repetition and resonance; and using minimalism to combine melody and texture.
Ensemble Batida
Ensemble Batida is a collective of five pianists and percussionists, interweaving contemporary music with improvisation and other artforms. As part of their commitment to championing high quality contemporary music they regularly commission and perform new works, as well as curating concerts, installations and transdisciplinary stage performances – most recently across Switzerland, France and the United States.
Martina Lussi
Sound artist Martina Lussi’s work lies in the intersection between fine arts, music and performance. She challenges dichotomies between the conscious and unconscious, power and powerlessness and inside and outside, through installations and live performances which involve the listener, as well as working with electronics and recorded sound.
Julian Sartorius
Julian Sartorius is a percussionist, drummer and sound artist. He uses repetition rhythmic layering, found objects and prepared instruments to form sounds into innovative shapes. His work spans performance and installation, experimenting and exploring the sounds produced by unconventional objects.
Tobias Meier
Zurich-based composer, improviser and saxophonist Tobias Meier’s work explores the architectural and structural aspects of music. As a composer, Meier’s output focuses mainly on expanding the possibilities of solo saxophone music, using live-electronics, programming, words, tape-recorders, FM radio transmitters and receivers, movement and choreography.
Franziska Baumann
Franziska Baumann is a singer, improviser, composer and sound artist working ‘in the border area of an unfathomable vocal universe’. As a vocal artist she works with live electronics and sampled sounds in order to explore the human voice both as a multi-faceted instrument and a tool for discovering new interactions between sound and gesture.
JMO
Julie Semoroz, or JMO, is a singer, sound artist and curator. Semoroz uses field recordings, microphones and her own voice combined with software and hardware to explore themes of habitat, time, and the relationships between individuals and society.
Insub Meta Orchestra
The Insub Meta Orchestra is a collective of about 50 permanent members, who come together to perform large experimental, improvised and electroacoustic pieces of music. Formed in 2010 by Cyril Bondi and d’incise (see above), the IMO challenges perceived listening and stereotypical hierarchies, focusing on collective gesture and interaction with silence.
Rahel Kraft
Rahel Kraft is a musician, performance and sound artist based in Vienna and Zurich. Her work spans performance, composition and installation, often combining graphic scores, field recordings, improvisation and experimental recording practices to merge organic sounds with electronics, text and visual media.
Tobias Reber
Tobias Reber is a musician, composer, performance artist and teacher with a body of work ranging from electronic, electroacoustic and algorithmic composition to free improvisation, cross-genre performance and sound installations.
Sum of R
Sum of R’s music has been described as ‘the soundtrack of the judgement day’. Since their formation in 2008, Sum of R have been through several states of metamorphosis: from atmospheric doom into ritualistic drone rock into dark ambient and experimental music. Their slow-moving music immerses the listener using a wall of instrumental sound and repetitive mantras, exploring both darkness and the reflections of light found within.
Sound Journeys: Switzerland
Out on Friday 23 October 2020, available on CD and digital
