Winged summit meeting
On Perpetual Delirium, Andreas Schaerer's voice combines brilliantly with the saxophones of the Arte Quartet and the bass of Wolfgang Zwiauer.
If anyone stood out on the Swiss jazz scene in 2014, it was Andreas Schaerer. The musician from Bern, who hails from Valais, impressed on several productions, demonstrating his broad stylistic and expressive horizons. After the albums with Lucas Niggli (Arcanum) and the volume Hildegard learns to fly (The Fundamental Rhythm Of Unpolished Brains) at the end of the year, the musician, born in 1976, released the result of his collaboration with the Arte Quartett, founded in 1995, which, like the Kronos Quartet, explores the border areas between contemporary classical music and jazz, but with saxophones instead of string instruments.
The tracks for the album Perpetual Delirium was composed by Andreas Schaerer on behalf of the Arte Quartet. Together they interpret the contrasting work in a brilliant and always precise manner. Beat Hofstetter, Sascha Armbruster, Andrea Formenti and Beat Kappeler weave all kinds of saxophone sounds into a dense and mostly dynamically undulating stream, which is grounded by Wolfgang Zwiauer's warm bass. Andreas Schaerer's vocal acrobatics take center stage - the term "singing" is out of the question, as he uses all kinds of vocal means of expression, from onomatopoeia and scat to speech singing and beatboxing to crooning and operatic coloratura. However, he never pushes himself to the fore, but integrates his voice so well into the instrumental part that it is impossible to tell whether all the sounds originate from his voice or instruments.
Jazz music lives to a large extent from the live element, which makes it difficult to listen to it live, especially in the more experimental field. Access to this album, which also has contemplative passages, is made easier by a DVD included with the CD, which contains the filmed live premiere as well as a background video to the project. What makes this album even more of a pleasure, indeed a delight, is the humor that comes across in the effortless vocal performances and some comical moments in the compositions.
Andreas Schaerer meets ARTE Quartett & Wolfgang Zwiauer: Perpetual Delirium. BMC Records (CD + DVD).
