The album, entitled “Eng, Düster und Bang”, is based on a text by the German writer Jean Paul. The first flower piece from the novel “Flower, fruit and thorn pieces; or, the married life, death, and wedding of the advocate of the poor, Firmian Stanislaus Siebenkäs” is captioned “Rede des toten Christus vom Weltgebäude herab, dass kein Gott sei”, or “Speech by the dead Christ from the Universe, confessing that there is no God”. Blixa Bargeld carried Jean Paul’s text around with him for a long time before eventually suggesting it to KiKu as the basis for another collaboration. The text is a masterpiece of the German language and a key document of modern atheism, as well as being the autobiographical testimony of the author, who was brought up in a vicarage. One summer evening, the narrator falls asleep outside and dreams that he is awakened in a cemetery, at one hour before midnight, by the chimes from a clock tower and watches as all the graves open up. The day of the Last Judgment appears to be dawning because at the same time everything is shaken by an earthquake, just as depicted in apocalyptic fantasies for thousands of years. The narrator enters the swaying church, where all the dead gather as shades around the altar. We become witnesses to a type of cosmic Mass, when suddenly Christ descends on to the altar from above. All the dead spontaneously call out, filled with fear, as if they sense it: “Christ, is there no God?” And he, the Revelator, who proclaims the truth, says only: “There is no God.” Christ as a pitiful creature, drenched in tears. The world is engulfed and the corpses, which were only ever shadows, disintegrate. The Last Judgment and eternal life with God in Heaven do not await Mankind, only a tumultuous chaos in an eternal night filled with pain. 
In this project, the text is split into a sequence of pieces and songs that can be listened to as a whole, as a suite. Rich and inspiring grooves and ecclesiastical-sounding melodies merge into a suggestive maelstrom. Just like Jean Paul’s words from Blixa Bargeld’s mouth, the composition seems to be a cosmic and religious, indeed an ideological vision that is not just current, but timeless. At some points, just as on the first album “Marcher sur la tête”, the New York rapper Black Cracker takes on the narrator’s role and casts a spell on the listener with his striking and personal poetry, expanding the acoustic field that composer Yannick Barman has created: melancholy, driving elemental forces and instincts, but also intermittent musically enlightening glimmers of hope and gentle choral, even playful, clouds above a world in fearful turmoil.

Eng, Duester und Bang

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KiKu & Blixa Bargeld & Black Cracker - Like this

KiKu & Blixa Bargeld & Black Cracker - Eng, Düster und Bang

KiKu & Blixa Bargeld & Black Cracker - Tanz

When monsters kiss
Certainly, the music of Dnepr is gloomy, dim and in parts ominous. But it does not exhaust itself in
oppressive mud and bombastic lunacy. From the menacing swamp, sound figures rise from time to
time and find a moment of ethereal beauty, as if two monsters kiss each other before disappearing
again into murky ground fog and atonal madness.
With "Songs of No Return" Dnepr releases an album with a unique mix of guitar carpets, spherical
pads and dry drums. Impressive, oppressive and stunning at the same time.

Dnepr - Songs of No Return - System Of Soothing

Dnepr - Songs of No Return - The Modern Prometheus

Dnepr - Songs of No Return - Sound And Fury

Antonio Albanello is the musical mastermind behind the cryptically named project, ΘYMOZ. Over the last thirty years, his works have been unveiled to the public in waves of creativity, ever oscillating between pop and experimental. Since the 1980s, Albanello has initiated and produced numerous pop and rock projects (The Men, Albanello). He was a member of the mythical group Dnjepr and has developed concepts for sound installations and theatre music. At the present time, he regularly performs in a live electronic setting under the name ozmoZ. Exploring and experimenting with different electronic realms, over the years he has increasingly created songs that seek to unite electronic and organic soundscapes.

In his project ΘYMOZ, Albanello brings together his long-time musical companion Marco Maria, drummer Manuel Pasquinelli, pianist Maja Nydegger and sound engineer Chris Diggelmann to form a unique collaboration of artists.
The development of Breed was a gradual process involving multiple phases. Its evolution began in Albanello’s recording studio, but then disruptive construction noise sent the project on a one-and-a-half-year odyssey. Working in a mobile recording studio, the ideas were matured and crafted together in the area surrounding Bern, by the North Sea and in Berlin. Each stage of the journey gave rise to new material and increasingly refined soundshaping. Many traditional elements were cast overboard; conventional song structures became visibly corroded.  During the recording sessions in the Church of the Holy Spirit (Heiliggeistkirche) in Bern, the elements of Breed were blended together to create a cohesive whole, skilfully weaving the majesty of the baroque organ, grand piano, percussion and vast space into the fabric of the electronic stories. It is this bold experimental approach which gives the album its distinct atmosphere. The ten stories it recounts are told through very few words. On this intimate sounding album, the voice is held back and the lyrics are kept relatively short, often taking the form of lyrical and metaphorical interjections. They convey up a sense of transience, conjuring up feelings of loss, sleepless states and cracks. Breed does not strive for perfection. The elaborate soundscapes, subtle polyrhythms and organic craftsmanship intentionally reveal fault lines. A certain impudence emerges in the use of the stylistic devices. At the same time, the power of inherent beauty pointedly breaks through the melancholic veil in the form of melodies, rhythms and different musical planes.

Breed

ΘYMOZ - Broken Soldier

“…Kamilya Jubran and Werner Hasler’s Wameedd is the most challenging, creative, and disturbing. Hasler a Swiss composer and performer of electronic music, provides an eerie, subtle, and remarkably appropriate sound background for Jubran's voice and 'ud. Jubran's 'ud playing is mostly basic and spare, her repetitive lines and note-bending often bearing a family resemblance to that of Mississippi delta blues guitarists. The focus here is less on melody than on emotion, feeling, and the
words. “ RootsWorld

Musician, composer and one of the most revered figures for today’s younger generation of experimental and alternative Arabic music-scenes, Kamilya Jubran (text, oud & vocals, collaborates with long standing musical partner, composer, accomplished trumpet player and seasoned electronic musician Werner Hasler (trumpet & electronics).

In Wa (Arabic for and), their third album together as a duo, Kamilya Jubran and Werner Hasler continue to interrogate their listening and their expression, their research and their desires, to unravel a musical universe of possibilities; “a unison of timbres, cultures complementing, the complicity of verses, and modes and languages confronting each other ” in the duo’s own way of communicating respective origins and contemporaneity.

Lyrical, within a sound full of contrast and ornamentation, they pursue an expansion of their repertoire with imaginative interpretation and improvisation. For this release via Swiss label Everest Records, Jubran and Hasler seek new sonic and phonetic territory, based on the wasla compound form found in the classical repertoire of Near Eastern music and in Western modern and improvised music; a suite of musical explorations within one composition. In the 45-minutes-long piece that makes up the full length album, they gradually unveil to us the tenants of this artistic dialogue, as they deepen a longstanding musical pact nurtured since 2002 based on the probing and opening up of musical modes and traditions. The chemistry between Jubran and Hasler’s exchange gives birth to a singular, original and extratemporal sound.

Kamilya Jubran (singer, oud) and Werner Hasler (trumpet, electronics) have been collaborating since 2002. Their first collaboration Mahattaat was their earliest experiment into bringing together disparate cultural and artistic roots. Their next collaboration, Wameedd, released in 2004, combined Jubran’s vocal skill and limitless imagination with Hasler’s melodies and his original aesthetics in electronic music. The duo then released Wanabni in 2010 followed by W asl in 2016, featuring French double bass player Sarah Murcia.

Tumbleweed 1 (single)

Bandcamp

Kamilya Jubran & Werner Hasler - Tumbleweed 1 (Single)

Jal (single)

Kamilya Jubran & Werner Hasler - Jal (Single)

Kamilya Jubran & Werner Hasler - Yama (Single)

Kamilya Jubran & Werner Hasler - Wa (Suite)

Established in 1999 in Berne (Switzerland), its catalogue features finest dark drones, electro-acoustic, electronica and IDM/glitch.

Artists:
Alphatronic, Balduin, Benfay, BlindeKinder, Bushwac, Copy & Paste, Everest, The Fabulous Dance Machine, Hemlock Smith & Les Poissons Autistes, Herbaljazz, Herpes ö DeLuxe, HOPEN, Hildegard Kleeb and Pelayo Arrizabalaga, Ige*timer, Mathon, Matu, Margrit Rieben, Meienberg, Misel Quitno, Monpetitponey, Neuromodulator, Op Rechts/Hess, Strotter Inst., Tsuki

KiKu & Blixa Bargeld & Black Cracker - Like this

Everest Records

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