Confused journeys of discovery into far-flung musical worlds

What are the signs of a successful festival? A note on the steel door of the old Jura garage that says "sold out"? Or the fact that not only on stage, but also in the audience, a wide variety of age groups, musicians and music lovers of all styles come together? In any case, the eighth edition of this small, fine festival on the language border was once again moving in its own way and showed what waves a festival can make when its concept and implementation combine a high level of initiative with a high degree of professionalism. At times, it enabled confused journeys of discovery in widely divergent musical worlds, which sometimes refreshed, sometimes tired, sometimes delighted and sometimes annoyed.

Photos: Marcel Meier

The place is unique

When Ear We Are is not visiting, steel, wood, glass and plastics are used in the old Juragarage in Biel. On the Ear We Are weekend, there's not much of that to be seen. A stage and a bar have been set up, chairs lined up, lights and technology installed. Under the influence of the old garage nostalgia and thanks to the efforts of those involved, a relaxed atmosphere is created that facilitates, but does not force, an exchange, that offers everything desired but does not impose it.

Unique is the way

The program, for which the four musicians from the Biel scene, Gaudenz Badrutt, Hans Koch, Christian Müller and Martin Schütz, are responsible, reveals their own signature style. It is characterized by contrasts and a wide stylistic range that includes free improvised music, jazz and free jazz, noise and conceptual music as well as chanson, rock and hip hop. Well-known musicians of free improvisation are part of the experiment, but young, lesser-known or local musicians are also included. This results in concert sequences that attract new attention with each new performance.

Roscoe Mitchell

The result is unique

This year's Thursday began in rapture. Roscoe Mitchell captivated the audience from the very first note with his resting, never-ending cantilenas, only to unleash his incomparable energy in a virtuoso frenzy at the end of his performance. The Norwegian duo of the tireless electro artist Maja Ratkje and the noise specialist Lasse Marhaug then seemed less at home, their worlds only seeming to reconcile in brief moments. Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and his band The Thing made up for this later in the evening with a wonderfully powerful yet finely tuned show.

Friday's program was also varied in terms of style and attitude: the cultivated performance by the two greats Rüdiger Carl and Sven-Åke Johansson showed what poetry can be extracted from "simple" sound sources if they are handled in a stylish and effective manner. The following experiment by Jacques Demierre and Vincent Barras - as may be inferred from the program text - probably looks better on paper than it sounds. The "exact sound sculptures" of their Poésie sonore were unable to leave the "boundaries of familiar sonority" and seemed stale. It did not even develop a fascination in the duration of its irrelevance. Thomas Peter's short and subtle sound improvisation provided a long-awaited contrast, after which the show by Ishmael Butler and Tendai "Baba" Maraire's hip-hop combo Shabazz Palaces provided a somewhat long but exceptionally subtle conclusion.

There were also contrasts on Saturday afternoon with two young musicians: South Korean cellist Okkyung Lee impressed with her original power and forcefulness, in which she repeatedly built up enormous towers of sound. In contrast, Roman Nowka's caricatures of an amateur musician were briefly refreshing and then tiring. In the evening, there were also full rows with Pascal Auberson, Christophe Calpini and Laurent Poget, the noise enfant terrible Rudolf Eb.er, Keith Rowe and John Tilbury and with Marc Ribot's trio Ceramic Dog.
 

Trio Ceramic Dog