On the magic carpet

Nik Bärtsch, a long-time fan, supporter and employer of Nicolas Stocker, quotes the old joke in his cover text that a band consists of a number of musicians, plus a drummer, and turns the disrespectful statement into its opposite: a drummer is actually something other than a mere musician. On the one hand, it is his duty to embody the primal and mystical power of percussion, on the other hand, he must also have a sense of abstraction, space and structure.

The 31-year-old composer, drummer, percussionist and producer Nicolas Stocker is a percussionist in every sense of the word. He has been playing the piano since the age of five and the drums since the age of eleven. He is also equipped with a panoramic musical curiosity. He belongs to Nik Bärtsch's acoustic ensemble Mobile, is part of the excitingly innovative trio Kali with guitarist Urs Müller and pianist Raphael Loher, and also co-founded the trip-hoppy band Marylane. There's no need to start listing his many other appearances.

Solo contains five pieces: a short prelude, titled Bells for Ponythen the quarter-hour Polyrub, two almost ten-minute compositions and finally a postlude reprise of Bells for Pony. Each piece is completely different from the previous one. They all display a subtle approach to the melodic possibilities of percussion. Polyrub begins with short woodblock beats and then, in a brisk succession of loud and less loud, intense and less intense passages, struggles forward into frightening depths of polyrhythmic complexity - without ever causing any fear of losing one's footing on the flying carpet due to such virtuosity. The fascinating Bells for No One combines the rhythm of long, drawn-out gong beats with noises reminiscent of a bag of rattling nails, as well as all kinds of other sporadically struck beats that sound as soft as they are melodic. Burst in turn, is a powerful drum gallop that nonetheless reveals a fascinating melody. Conclusion: a superb album all round.