Anthem For No Man's Land Andreas Schaerer, Luciano Biondini, Kalle Kalima, Lucas Niggli

• 1 St. John's Passion 04:46
• 2 Tandem 05:53
• 3 Laki Penan 04:22
• 4 Magma Mia 04:52
• 5 Mr. More 05:39
• 6 Anthem for No Man's Land 07:08
• 7 Siesta in Utopia 05:21
• 8 Eglised by the Moon 04:43
• 9 Bad Eye 03:40
• 10 Sogna Belino 04:28
• Total Runtime 50:52

Info for Anthem For No Man's Land

Vocal virtuoso Andreas Schaerer and his pan-European quartet create a musical utopia of a world without borders.

Swiss vocal phenomenon Andreas Schaerer has been described as 'the Germanic Bobby McFerrin with the flow of a Shakespearean actor’ (L’Alsace). His ‘charismatic and powerful stage presence’ (FAZ) mark him out as a unique figure in European music, a distinction recognised in early 2024 when he became the French Académie du Jazz’s European Artist of the Year.

Schaerer, as a musical creator intent on making original art – arguably even a completely original art form – is highly conscious of the processes by which the charisma and the presence of a vocal soloist function. As he says, ‘a voice always comes directly out of the music around it. In “Anthem For No Mans Land" he takes a further step in demonstrating that he is driven by other motivations than simply to shine as soloist. Deeply committed to the collective ethos of his regular quartet, he says: ‘I have consciously studied how I can use my voice to accompany music or an instrument. It's less difficult to find accompanying patterns than to ensure that the voice doesn't constantly push itself to the fore. If you don't want to take on this traditional role as a singer, you have to be very deliberate in the shaping of your music.’

What will always shine through, however, and particularly in live performance, is the passion Schaerer applies to his art. On stage, his whole body becomes an instrument, elastic and dance-like. He inhabits the music, glides into it, takes on roles that emerge from the sounds he makes. It's an unusual concept which he can take further when he teams up with drummer Lucas Niggli, guitarist Kalle Kalima and accordionist Luciano Biondini. The quartet brings together strong and disparate musical characters who now know each other well: ‘The band has been in existence since 2016‘ says Schaerer. ‘The original nucleus was the duo with Lucas Niggli which already existed at that time. We couldn't decide whether we wanted to go more in an electronic or an acoustic direction in the long run. The plan was to have two trios. We explored one direction with Kalle and the other with Luciano. The chemistry was right, so a quartet came out of it. And we all play together in other ways, as duos in different combinations.’

It is now more than six years since the release of the quartet's first album, ‘A Novel Of Anomaly’ in 2018, and the band has evolved considerably through more than 100 concerts. The gap between albums is explained by the fact that Schaerer is involved in several other projects: Hildegard lernt fliegen, Out Of Land, The Big Wig, Rom / Schaerer / Eberle or Evolution...All of this other work feeds back into the way the group works. The quartet’s music, as heard on “Anthem For No Man’s Land”, is now perceptibly on a larger scale, and it also has a greater sense of openness and freedom.

Along with Andreas Schaerer’s conscious retreat from the ‘front line’ of the band and into the collective, there is also a new experimental freedom in his use of language. The opening sentence of the liner note makes this clear: “This is our musical offering for a utopian, inclusive society, using a new, free, imaginary language unlimited by origin or cultural boundaries.” Schaerer achieves something remarkable here: without renouncing the spoken word, he has also, simultaneously, managed to turn his back on it. The words he sings may sound familiar, but the language here is invented. Schaerer’s way is to evoke associations and to create moods with language. And the way he does it is so masterful and subtle, a casual listener might have the impression they are listening to English, Spanish, Greek or Italian, and that the words have a meaning. In fact, they don’t. And whereas all this might sound as if it is done just as a joke and to get a laugh, it isn’t. There is a serious purpose.

As Schaerer says: ‘The interface between language, music and sound is particularly exciting. I have always been interested in playing with this nexus, where content dissolves and language is just sound, but still has enough linguistic DNA to continue to be understood as such. It's fluid, even funny, a childlike place. Children also speak many fantasy languages. And on this album, I thought a lot in this direction. Some pieces work well without any, but others demand a language. I then experimented with imaginary English or Italian, where I only used the ‘temperatures’ of the sounds. Because it quickly became clear to me that “Anthem For No Man’s Land” should use a more free languages that do not belong to any nation. They are all non-existent words.’

The music is completely aligned with this Utopian ideal. As the liner note states: “We are not just striving to affirm freedom, we want to live it in our music.” At times, ‘Anthem For No Man’s Land’ sounds like prog rock or the psychedelic sound of the seventies. At others there is the chance to enjoy echoes of Italian popular song or to lean in to a tango. There are influences of West African rhythms and Alpine melodies. Chamber jazz leads to a sophisticated form of Dada, the diversity of sounds and motifs matches the images conjured up by the imaginary languages.

“Anthem For No Mans Land” never just sticks with the obvious. Schaerer and his quartet have declared the intention to express an ideal, a philosophy ‘through the emotions and the immediacy of our music.’ They have succeeded.

Andreas Schaerer, voice, mouth percussion, bass-synthesizer
Luciano Biondini, accordion
Kalle Kalima, electric guitar
Lucas Niggli, drums

Andreas Schaerer
Composer and performer, Andreas Schaerer, was born in Switzerland in 1976. He spent his childhood in the Valais region of the Alps mingling with the sheep, later moving to Bern and the picturesque region of the Emmental. He left to complete the acclaimed teacher-training course at Hofwil.

Schaerer’s musical career began when he was young, using early tape decks to produce compositions such as, ’Duo for Sewing Machine and Harmonica’, before gaining his first stage experience as a teenage guitarist for the renowned punk band of the time, Hector Lives.

In 2000, after two extended trips to South and Central America, Schaerer attended the University of Arts in Bern. For six years he studied singing with Sandy Patton and Denise Bregnard, improvisation with Andy Scherrer and composition with Klaus König, Christian Henking and Frank Sikora.

After graduating he began performing professionally and founded the Bern Jazz Workshop (Jazzwerkstatt Bern) in 2007 with Marc Stucki and Benedikt Reising. This ongoing collective acts as a communication point and promotes artistic exchange.

As a vocalist Schaerer explores a wide range of techniques including raw sprechgesang (an expressionist style between singing and speaking), sound imitation, beat-boxing and scatting right through to operatic coloratura. Today he performs with his own projects: the sextet, Hildegard Learns to Fly (Hildegard Lernt Fliegen) and duos with bassist Bänz Oester, and drummer, Lucas Niggli. He’s part of the quartett „Out Of Land“ with Emile Parisien, Vincent Peirani and Michael Wollny and works with the band „A Novel Of Anomaly“ together with Kalle Kalima, Luciano Biondini and Lucas Niggli.

Schaerer also collaborates with the classical saxophone quartet ARTE and is in a trio with the Viennese musicians Martin Eberle and Peter Rom, as well as playing with The Beet. In 2015 his first symphonic piece „the Big Wig“ was premiered at the LUCERNE FESTIVAL.

Schaerer is a sought-after studio musician and composer, working in diverse genres from jazz and freestyle music through to hip-hop and soundtracks. His concerts and tours take him across Europe, Russia, China, Japan, Egypt, Libanon, Southcorea, Mexico, Canada, Argentine and South Africa.

In 2008, Hildegard Learns to Fly won the prestigious Jazz ZKB prize and became one of the priority jazz acts for the Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia. In 2014 they won the BMW World-Jazz Award aswell as the BMW-audience prize. In 2015 Andreas Schaerer was awarded the title of International Vocalist of the Year at the 2015 ECHO Jazz Awards (in the year immediately following Gregory Porter). In 2016 he receives the Music-price of the district of Berne. 2018 he’s awarded with two ECHO Jazz Awards as „Ensemble International“ of the year aswell as „Large Ensemble“

In 2009/10 Schaerer was invited by Bobby McFerrin to contribute to the improvised, wordless opera, ‘Bobble’. As well as performing with Bobby McFerrin, Schaerer has performed with Soweto Kinch, Bänz Oester, Luciano Biondini, Lucas Niggli, Kalle Kalima, Emile Parisien, Vincent Peirani, Michael Wollny, Anton Goudsmit, Barry Guy, Mars Williams, Peter Rom, Martin Eberle, Lucerne Festival Academy, Christy Doran’s New Bag, The Ploctones, Kaspar Ewald’s Exorbitantes Kabinett, Colin Vallon, Elina Duni amongst others.

Booklet for Anthem For No Man's Land