Sartorius rattles through the Countryside

Bern-based percussionist Julian Sartorius is not only one of the busiest musicians in Switzerland, but also one of the most original musical thinkers. Taught by avant-garde greats like Pierre Favre, Fabian Kuratli and Norbert Pfammatter, Sartorius has since worked with the likes of Matthew Herbert, Sylvie Courvoisier, Merz, Fred Frith, Sophie Hunger and Steve Beresford.

His new album is a pretty extraordinary affair even when measured against the unusual standards of the avant-garde world. Banging, rattling and beating on everything that took his fancy – trees, benches, empty silos, wrecked cars, etc -, Sartorius gathered the basic sound materials for his new album “Hidden Tracks: Basel – Genève” on a ten-day walk from Basel across the Jura to Geneva. Back in his studio in Bern, he created ten rhythmic sound-collages from everything he had gathered, one from each day’s harvest.

Julian Sartorius
Everest Records