Leading the way

The Schwyzerörgeli is only a little over a hundred years old and has already become an immovable cliché: Apart from country music, nothing seems to work. Hardly any protagonist of the "Örgeler scene" wants to break this cliché or is able to set new musical accents. To this day, many parts of the folk music scene are still somewhat prudish. Thomas Aeschbacher and his father Werner Aeschbacher from Oberaargau are among the few who nevertheless seek out new musical languages on their instruments. Of course, they do this without negating the roots of folk music. Why should they? Thomas Aeschbacher, like his father a well-deserved great in the new Swiss folk music scene, demonstrates this emphatically on his first solo album "feat.".

The almost 50-year-old, who has always been on the lookout for new tones, sounds and chehrli in traditional folk music since his early years, brought 25 outstanding companions from the most diverse sectors of the Swiss music scene into the studio for his album. The result is "feat.", one of those rare Schwyzerörgeli albums that doesn't start to bore from the third track onwards. It is not primarily his fellow musicians who are responsible for this, but Thomas Aeschbacher's own academically trained musicality, which can move just as naturally in folk music as in jazz, classical and world music and also has something credible to say. Curious, at times quite mischievously clownish (such as Balthasar Streiff in Anthem) are joined by jazz musicians, wind players, plucked string instrumentalists and even a church organist. Together they grow beyond the boundaries of traditional Swiss folk music, in surprising combinations of instruments, in grooves that sometimes seem improvisational, sometimes hypnotic, sometimes melancholy, but always full of energy, listening and sensitivity. In principle, they don't invent anything new, but they add far more than just nuances to the traditional aspects of our folk music, without "the seasoned folk and world musicians denying their roots", as Thomas Aeschbacher explains. The result is "feat.", one of the most interesting and inspiring Schwyzerörgeli albums of recent years. Pioneering, of course.