I grew up as an orphan and have little memories before I passed my teens as a notorious troublemaker... My father was a hunter and was the Sha from the tribe of the "Shametterlings" (he hunted Shmetterlings which the tribe smokes as a ritual against hollow spirits) while my mother was queen hollow herself and left absolutely no mark of anykind neither in my soul, nor in my heart.
Some people pull up from time to time and pretend they're my next of kin, but they only reveal being nightmarish thugs - I call them "Dumpfbeutels" -, so I quickly retrieved into my own reality and found the genuine brotherhood of musicians to be my only root and family after all.

I have a recollection of having witnessed a concert of Errol Garner which was to be a seminal experience for me. Somehow early in school, I was lucky to have had a teacher that sensed and fuelled my musical passion by getting me into choir of which I became one of three soloists. I was very glad to have had that "extra-exposure", because, I reckon, it kept me from being bored and getting more odd than just a handful to everybody...

Somebody put me on to jazz, of which I remember a track called "Comin’ Home" by Ben Tucker. It was an interpretation by Herbie Mann which made me want to play flute. So I enrolled the conservatory for (classical) flute.
At the same time, I kept on listening to all kinds of different music as remote as firebrigade-songs, student-obsceneties or musak. I remember adoring a weird french sound creator - André Pop - who totally disappeared a good 25 years before he was rediscovered recently. (e.g. I adored the mexican arranger Esquivel). In the early 60-ies, I received for christmas my first LP, the Beatles’ "Please Please Me".

In my early teens I once rented a Farfisa organ to play with friends and set up a band. I also remember an ‘Ultravox’, some kind of dictaphone with recording leaves (instead of tape) with which I recorded bubbling mushed-potatoes, screetching doors and more to let that play while we ‘rehearsed’.

Always curious of new music and sounds, I was into boogie-woogie a while and checking out the local record store I crossed a strange record sleeve

checked the tracks and read one "Opern-Boogie". This guy was to leave an indelebil mark for words to music: I never wrote any words and focused on instrumental music, although I cherish a vivid interest in the songform, so long it contains sensible meaning and deepness. This interest in the 'small tradition' (songwriting) was to lead to another seminal encounter (see 1989). But only 35 years later, I picked up the topic of the macaberetist... (see 2008/9)...

When I was 15, I discovered the blues with a Blue Horizon record of one Eddie Boyd, blues singer and pianist from Mississippi. Boyd came to England in the early days of the British blues explosion and been backed by Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall and the like. Eventually he played in the city I grew up and I was spellbound to this man who was to become my musical mentor.

Eddie showed me riffs, licks & tricks and much more!
I ‘grew into the blues’ checking out all those bands from the British bluesboom. Eddie would take me with him on tour to acompany him as far as East-Berlin.
I was also listening to bands like "Them", "The Kinks" and others. Eventually, I worked a whole summer long to buy my first stereo system, a real thing with separate amp and big speakers. Nobody could take the volume I liked to listen to, so I discovered the subtleties of the headphones; making me appreciate many a band that would leave the blues a bit behind and turn somewhat ‘psychedelic’. In the meantime, I grew into a headphones junkie so much, that I modified one of those first portable battery-fed mono (Philips)-cassetteplayers.

I’d sew the player into my jacket and as early as 1968, the ski-slopes saw probably the first walkman coming down with a bewildered music-freak.

In spring ‘68,  the "Monsterconcert" - a festival in Zürich - was to be a seminal experience: John Mayall’s Bluesbrakers, Jimi Hendrix, the excentric shows of Eric Burdon and "The Move" smashing monitors, blowing fume-bombs and what not,  "Traffic" and others all playing at one evening left an indelebil mark on my musical wishing list. I’d listen interminably to all kinds of music and ‘eat’ books of Sartre, Camus, Hesse and many others. Besides listening to as many records I could, I continued playing flute with our little band of friends. I also started to record  gigs with a friends' stereo tape recorder (a Uher 4400)...

In 1969, I went to London and then the Orkney islands and then back again through Scotland. When in London, I’d visit some clubs, checked out the carnaby street and portobello road business (that was about to fade already), smoked plenty shoeshine-creme and awakened my apetite to return to this fascinating city a year later with a chum (the one that owned the Uher 4400). We’d check out the Ronnie Scott’s and the Marquee. I remember some fantastic music, a concert with Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, Graham Bond, Keith Tippett’s Centipede, Nucleus, Gary Burton and many others.

1971, eventually, I went to the french part of Switzerland - to Neuchâtel - to finish school. In Neuchâtel, I enrolled the conservatory masterclass with André Pépin (of Ernest Ansermet’s great orchestra). However, I wanted a bread-providing paper, too, so I graded 1973 with the diploma of the school of commerce. Achieving the virtuosity at the conservatory around the same time, I had a clear vision that I wouldn’t ever want to live as a music-teaching bored flute player or rot in the ditch of some provincial orchestra, but rather earn my living ‘commercially’.

1973, after school, I got my first job at "Musik Hug" in Neuchâtel in the record’s department. Starting to be bored with pop music and having discovered jazz and the avantgarde of Miles Davis and his off-springs, I quit playing flute. Roland Kirk and Jethro Tull having said it all, I believed. I started playing guitar and sax and bought a Fender Rhodes.
I went through a period of pickin’ up many ‘topical-songs’, covering a lot of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and other ‘protest singers’ (lots of performing e.g. in prisons)...

In 1974, leading the record’s department at "Musik Hug" by now, I was sent to New York to purchase a container of cut-out albums. I took advantage to take 3 months off and done a motorbike-trip with my oboe-playing buddies. We drove from New York via Toronto all the way to Vancouver and then south down the westcoast to ‘kill my american dream’, visiting all those hippie-sites I used to think I was fond of. To pay the trip back (I couldn’t sell my BMW-bike like I planned), I busked in Vancouver’s gastown playing guitar and harmonica, singing Woody Guthrie, Dylan, Boris Vian and other topical songs.

In 1975 - the petrolcrisis striking - I was made redundant at "Hug Musik" and in a whim of anger, I figured I could well open my own record-store.
Another issue also was to organise concerts, hence I launched Neuchâtel’s first rock-gig in the newly restaured temple of the town. The only rock band that remained to my taste was "Gentle Giant". The concert was a smashing success. More gigs followed like "Van der Graf Generater" until I flopped with "The Stars of Faith". However, at that gig I became aquanted with organist Jerome Van Jones and yet more jazz.

In 1976, I joined forces with the late jazzdrummer Denis Progin to open the jazzclub "Jazzland". Instead of setting up flippers and condom-machines in a spareroom, I put up a little record store. In the evenings, I’d ingeneer and record the concerts. Since we weren’t allowed to sell alcohol (making the only real money) if no band was playing, we’d set up the club-stage as rehearsing platform for my various bands ("Arthur", "Clever Bastards" and others). The lose constellations of the ‘bands’ enabled the club to always have live music (and sell boose).

By 1978, I still got nowhere really with the recordshop and grew tired to just spread news, e.g. be the record-guru that sells good taste; I prefered to get news, learn more...
So I decided to get rid of my debts before I was 30 and enrolled as office-clerk in a renowned industry ("Metaux Precieux"). Speaking fluently english, german & french, I was sent around the world by the company (e.g. Hong Kong, New Delhi and others).

In 1980, Métaux Précieux wanted to ‘buy me out’ by offering me a steep bowtie-carreer; hence I quit (became confident enough to make it on my own). I ran into an oportunity to work as independant sales-rep for advertising space (selling blue sky...). This made me travel an incredible lot and given me more oportunity to discover places like SaudiArabia, Columbia, Ecuador, Spain, Yougoslawia, Tunesia and many other corners of the world. From these trips I always brought back instruments, records, scents and sounds (tones & shades!). Because of "globetrotting while earning" I had  the priviledge of ‘not having to’, not to make any concessions, that is, to accept only work I liked to do and thus to nurish my baby, the music.

1981, after returning from SaudiArabia, I was offered to do some music for a local film. I rented a mixing desk and an 8-track half-inch recorder, yet another seminal experience. I was close to most of the members of the anvantgarde-band "Débile Menthol", the Swiss exponent of the ‘Rock in Oposition’ movement. The band was to record the first album for Chris Cutler’s indie label RecRec. Often working with drummer Gilles "Dizzi" Rieder, we recorded many ambiances requested for the commissioned movie. We designed many instruments ourselves or took to sounding objects to obtain genuine sounds, making tracks with kitchen utensils, canalisation tubes, drills and more. The age of sampling was not yet born, so we worked with splicing tapes and loop them. Many of such experiments/ambiances didn’t find their way into said movie but I kept them aside for later use.

1982, I joined a band from Geneva ("Code") as keyboarder and got me one of those ‘wonder-synths’ (Sequential Circuits' "Prophet 10"). The band was built around a genuine actor/poet/singer as frontman (Dominique Stehlé) and a gifted guitar-virtuoso/tunesmith (Yves Roth). After 3 weeks of rehearsals, we received some offers and toured 80 gigs in less than 3 months. Sadly enough, Dominique decided not to continue the band and it was out of question to replace the man. A pity, there's only very little footage of this rocking unit
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MqrveTUhDzE
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=o3f-CWDMP-Q&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=g5YKHHA0_2o&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tyxLMFOyNRY&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OOBBNq7ya90&feature=channel_page

1983 was a year of lots of work as sales-rep in order to stock up the financial belt. I was considering my own studio... On august 1st, Dominique committed suicide. Enough reason to force the barn-studio-issue... Dominique's departure saddened me to an extent never to play live again (I picked it up only a decade later by playing  Hammond with/for one Rico).

1984, after returning from Colombia, I accompanied  "Débile Menthol" behind the iron curtain for several weeks in the context of a ‘culture exchange’. What a great misunderstanding!: some cultural offices of Hungary and Switzerland wanted to ‘swap’ bands. Hungary settled for their most popular hard-rock-copy-cat band ("Pandora’s Box") to visit Switzerland and Switzerland put its choice in the hands of RecRec who sent the most weirdest avantgarde band "Débile" to Hungary. It was agreed that the Swiss band would first support Pandora’s Box on a Hungarian tour and then Pandora’s Box would do the same in Switzerland. What a great time! It felt like the infatuous scene in the Blues Brother movie: hard to ‘bypass’ all those beercans and -bottles... The crowd (infatuous followers of Pandora's Box and hard-rock-fans) thought we were putting them on... We had a great time!

1985, I continued to experiment laying down tracks, ‘building’ instruments, play sessions, program synths and/or produce friends while preparing the start of a more sophisticated studio.

1986, the studio was ready (a 16 track one inch tape machine, mixing board and some humble peripherie - all genuinly analog...). I released my first LP with a choice of work from the past 5 years and founded the "Mensch Records" label at the same time.

1987 I released the second LP "Manoeuvres d’Automne". Often working as live-engineer, I done the stage monitoring for a little local reggae-band. I invited them to come and record with me and release a maxi single. I had no prior encounter with reggae and I didn’t know the who’s who at all in that domain (the only reggae experience I ever witnessed was back in ‘81: LKJ performing a capella with three dancers), so I decided to check things out and took the next possible flight to Jamdown (Jamaica). The second day after my arrival in Ocho Rios I met the late producer W. "Jack Ruby" Lindo who introduced me to the real thing. One day, we went for a rehearsal of three guys somewhere behind Port Maria up in the hills. Another time Ruby took me to Kingston’s Dynamics Studio to witness the recording of a session with Sly & Robbie. In short: I dived deeply into the pulsating reggae-heart in Jamaica and met a lot of incredible musicians, buying loads of records and learning the intricate who’s who in reggae (if ever that’s possible...).

One evening in Oracabessa outside Ocho Rios, I witnessed that extraordinary phenomenom of thousands and thousands of fireflies blinking about. I was mesmerized. In particular when I started to inquire, e.g. what these scarabaes meant to people.
I got the ignition to launch a concept for an extraordinary journey into differences within cultures. My fascination for the bugs was all the more because my father was an enthomologist and I already knew quite a bit about butterflies and bugs.

Eventually I met this great man from Wareika: Rico. Bucking up with him and finding a mutual liking, Rico was to become yet another seminal encounter as much as Eddie Boyd was 20 years earlier. I told Rico that he'd be welcome in Switzerland... and after 2 months, we went back to Switzerland, finishing a.m. reggae band's recording (now fronted by Rico), and recorded a couple of naïve little riddims and scetches about the experiences and fascination of Jamaica and its firefly, the Peeni Waali.

1988, early in the year, I flew back to Jamaica again. I recorded more music and overdubbed the riddims I had prepared. Amongst the friends Rico recommended to me where percussion player Leon "Scully" Simms and Robbie Shakespeare. While shaping a tune at Music Works down Slipe Road 56, Dean "Big D" Frazer was just finishing a session there and hung around a bit after. He joined the party and blew us all away with his trademark sax playing: a song was born from out of everybody, free like an impro, original like nothing was premeditated, hence the title "A no nottn'"... The dice was cast, I took the bait and was hooked ever since to this wonderful world of people, country, idiom, paradigm, rythm-carrier that is reggae. I was amazed of the parallels with blues and often wondered how come I was never turned on way earlier to reggae as much as I was to blues. But this time I enjoyed the experience even more because I was more mature and active enough to meet so many musicians that invented it. Blues had a kind of ‘legacy feel’, something ‘old’ whereas reggae appeared fresh. Amongst the players I met was Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace who’d become a dear friend in the future and prevented me from a lot of trouble by making me dig even deeper into Jamaica. Rico also introduced me to an old friend of his, Felix "Deadly Headly" Bennet. After 2 months I returned from Jamaica to CH with plenty new music on tape and moved location from Neuchâtel to settle in the eastern part of Switzerland, in Jenins. At the same time, I enrolled for two years at the office of the advertising company I was working for as a freelance. Travelling became tiring...
Rico still being in Switzerland, he came over frequently to record for me and one evening (at his birthday), he’d come in with long time buddy from back the Jazzland-days, Jerome Van Jones. It was a very old dream of mine to record Duke Ellington’s "Satin Doll" with Jerome. Now with my ‘new’ discovery of reggae plus my apetite of experiment and new ventures, it seemed apropriate to do "Satin Doll" in reggae. We took advantage to do "Blue Moon" the same night, too.

1989. Knowing that Rico had played on most of Linton K. Johnson's albums - I've sent Linton a cassette with some tracks we were working on, asking if he would come to Jenins and join in. Linton answered that doors might be arranged to open... At the same time, Swiss TV approached me for a "Legalize It"-show where they wanted to include some Swiss-Jamaican-music-connection. Question was of Rico with that little amateur-reggae-band but Rico was tired to lace the shoes of the amateur band and back to Jamaica, so we arranged for LKJ and the Dub Band to fit in this open door... Eventually, after a soulful meeting with Linton and the charismatic Dennis Bovell, "Beacon of Hope" clicked into place...
In august I met Lee "Scratch" Perry who lived in Switzerland and was eager to find a ‘weirdo’ open enough for all kinds of experiments. Obviously he found his way to Jenins. He stayed for some 3 weeks. We experimented a lot, had a lot of fun. Scratch recorded some 10 tunes but none was fit for release really. One day Scratch offered to voice one of my riddims. I was surprised and mused, it would have to have a connection with Peeni Waali, with light. We ploughed through some older tapes and found a riddim (from "Manoeuvres d’Automne") that he liked and that could be re-shaped. Jenins being close to Liechtenstein, Scratch rapped about "Liecht (light) & Stein"...
The album "Peeni Waali" took shape now. Some tunes date back as far as 1981 from when I was in Jeddah ("Scarab") and making that filmmusic "Paper Mensch" - a cynical ‘elegy’ to office jobs. Eventually, enough tunes were together to release an album in

1990. This same year, Linton came back to Jenins to harbour out the premises to his own album "Tings An Times" that I had the pleasure of releasing on my label. Towards the end of the year, I couldn’t take the office any more and moved to Basel. I brooded over all the tunes that didn’t find space on Peeni Waali. I wondered, how I could put the stake even higher. I figured I should harbour out more tunes, went back to Jamaica in

1991 and continued to worship the ‘old contacts’, building up the ‘second serve’.

1992 I went back to Jamaica yet again over new year’s. Although the stay was musically fruitful, I experienced the darker side of Jamaica, got robbed 2 grand! To have been deprived of all existential means was an incredible experience! People encouraged me to stay and accomplish my mission: finishing the recordings I had planned. I became kinda "one of them", having no money, and I was flabbergast to realize that it was only then that I discovered the "real" Jamaica, the country of poor people helping out as much as they can. What a warmth from all them people. I fed on pineaple and sometime Jack Ruby's Brother who continued to run the "people's restaurant" in Ocho Rios, that is, he ran a successful fish-barbeque, would offer me a fish from time to time. Eventually I made my way back sound and safe with a lot of good music in the can.

1993 I moved again from Basel to Weite where I live today. Selling in proper terms became more and more irrelevant, while the genuine making/creating/inventing/producing new music for the sake of "looking inside" grew to a predominant occupation up until today.

1994 was marked by plenty sessions. Getting to know LKJ better through the years, naturally I met the players from the band, e.g. Steve Gregory and the fantastic (well underrated) guitarist John Kpiaye, one of my favourite guitarists with Peter Green.
Shortly after the reeds sessions with Steve, brass-woman-extraordinaire Shirley A. Hofmann clicked into the picture and many a tune ‘bellied up’ hornswise the ever present trombone of Rico.
Now, sometimes one has to work for vein patrons; people who believe because they have money, they’d get away with arrogance and foolishness. One of such speciman (a sick money-sack) talked me into producing his singing house-wife; an ill-fated project. The sort of things you’d never want to do again in your life. On this to be ‘mainstream pop production’, I had to cast a set of skilled accompanying musicians which I found in the trio L’Art de Passage from Berlin who backed Swiss troubadour Linard Bardill. The meeting and working with Rainer Rohloff (guitar, playing with Mikis Theodorakis also), Stefan Kling (piano) and Tobias Morgenstern (acordion) was a revelation for all! The relations with these brilliant musicians made us quickly forget our money-spoiled ‘boss’ and enjoy making music. Being able to pay the players for a boring job (the house-wife episode), the musicians were only too happy to make music for kicks while they were here and added their talents to Peeni Waali.
Casting a backing band for that ‘pop-flop’ brought yet another fantastic player: violinist Helmut Lipsky from Montreal, Canada. Highly skilled, classically trained (a pupil of Izaak Perlman), Lipsky liked the humour here and was happy to do something more than just glue-pop. You’d find him fiddle, holding his Stradivaribum at his hips ... ("Elemental")!
Getting to use accordion extensively, I glanced in the direction of other ‘typical’ Swiss instruments such as hackbrett. Although it took me almost 2 years to convince this great and shy player Roland Schiltknecht. Eventually, a session and a long lasting musical relation started (first producing Roland's solo effort "Tunsch" and then combine our efforts on "Sha").

1995 saw the venue of Taj Mahal. I was in the making of a blues rendering, a tribute to my musical mentor Eddie Boyd. However, Eddie passed away before I finished the tune. While I was recording the bass with Dennis Bovell, I told him the original plan and mentioned on the side, that I’d have to abandon the idea, because the only voice that I could imagine ‘substituting’ Eddie - if ever - would be someone like Taj Mahal. Now Dennis knew Taj, count two and two: next time, Taj toured in Switzerland he came over and "Blues for Eddie Boyd" was in the can...
The same year I got married to Astrid and our son Linton-Linus-Maurice was born on july 25th.

1996 I released the CD "Kulu Hatha Mamnua", a re-release of my first two LP’s (1986 and 1987).
Steve Gregory recommended his old friend Georgie Fame to do some hammond licks in some of my tunes. I knew Georgie plays with Van Morrison as much as Steve did. The link wasn’t so farfetched, because Georgie was after all the first British guy to play with Rico as far back as 1962...
Listening back to the organ takes of Georgie Fame, I thought, the stake could be put even higher, so I called Barbara Dennerlein. We’d set the logistics and a few days later, Barbara came over and blew me away by not only being an extraordinary player, but also a very charming, wit, fun to work with (and beautiful) woman.
When I mixed the Cairo band ‘Sharkiat’, I’ve got to know this fantastic qanun player Hossam Shaker. During his stay he was curious to hear what kind of music I’m doing, so I played him some raw tunes. He took to it immediately, improvised to it for fun and of course, it didn’t take long to mike him up and he joined the party with another colour, another exotic touch (sic).
While recording another album for Bolot & Nohon from Altai, a similar situation ocured. They were curious to hear some of my stuff. I suggested they’d bring in their throat vocals on the one harmony riddim ("Sleep Dub") to accentuate even more the monotony but enhance the trance-like feeling you can come into with simplicity. "Strekosa’s (Peeni Waali in Altai language) Chant" was also a welcome change to all the complicated scoring and intricate musical structures of many of the other tunes.
I did an awful lot of work that year. Much of it for others. 6 CD’s were to be released from that work. Consequence didn’t wait too long: I fell severely ill with a spooky vertigo that struck me down into a state of vegetable for a good 2 months (couldn’t walk anymore, hospital and all). Tobias came all the way from Berlin just to kick my ass and tell me: get up, man, and walk - while Linton phoned once a week to the house and cheered up my wife and the kid - thanks, mate, still - 10 years after!
Time to slow down, then. I decided to focus much more on the creative, productive side than to hustle for a little sale, leaving more freedom to get to the essence of music making: what's there to be achieved (rather then what's there to gain...). Since

1997 I’m a house-man, leaving me still some freedom to work in the studio. I recorded the first solo-album of acordion-acrobat Tobias Morgenstern. Lee Perry came again, too, and wanted me to produce some tracks for him in exchange of voicing another track for me ("Nice Time in Swiss").
I released the ‘second serve’ of Peeni Waali ("The Return of...") on september 4th. In autumn I was honoured by hosting and recording LKJ and the Dennis Bovell Dub Band, recording the album "More Time".

1998 saw the 10th Mensch Records release "Morgenstern" and plenty of work for yet another Peeni Waali round.
1999 I went shortly to London to do a session there with Eddie "TanTan" Thornton, Johnny T., Rico, John Kpiaye and Steve Gregory, finishing a few more tunes for the new venture, the closing act of the trilogy (a twelve-year scetch-book), a double album with yet many new tunes: "The Eve of Peeni Waali". I’ve also just re-released the first Peeni Waali album (1991) as "The Dawn of Peeni Waali". In august, our second son Andri-Dennis-Rico was born. Yet another reason to seek the outdoor of mere business. Still...

Beginning 2000 I finished the production  of drummer Daniel Spahni's solo project ("Cabaterista" of the 'Dub Dancers'), a fine instrumental reggae-album!
With the second child taking up too much time to get eclectic and concentrate on composition, I thought it would be a good pass-time to play live again for a while, in order not to lose touch, so... 

in 2001, I joined a little local r & b band ("Gumbo") and enjoyed the simpler life of rythm'n'blues, romp and stomp live just for fun...

In 2002, I tried out some recordings and mixing of "Gumbo" and done on 'alimentary' work like a project for a language-school in Liechtenstein or speaking telephone-horoskopes while preparing  the upgrade to harddisk-recording.

In 2003, we had a streak of bad luck. We were rudely kicked out of the house we lived in for 10 years. We had 12 days to pack and leave! Pure chaos, no alternative place to go, all our belongings bomb-shelled in 20 different locations; pure dread! But in may, after 20 days of being homeless, we were lucky enough to find a place for rent again, so at least the kids get back to normal. The house didn't hold enough space to set up a working facility (for making music) and it took me rather rudly not to do anything really.  However, I was given the challenge to compile an "LKJ in concert" project from some 20 shows around the world. And in autumn, after having been homeless and having to accomodate with a 'temporary flat' (no musical activities possible), luck smiled on us again and I managed to buy a house with a barn for the new studio, which was built for the most part of 2004.

In early 2005, I was invited by Lars Hollmer to play accordion with him for a gig in the village of Weite. Hopefully this will lead to yet more collaboration with this fine gentleman. 2005 has also seen the arrival of Khan Bogd, a 10 piece ensemble from Mongolia to record 2 CD's. It was a real treat to host these fine musicians from so far. I always enjoy to see a band play and record them. In particular, when the music is fresh and the band ready to play without tedious overdubs and technical mumbo-jumbo. Ever since the studio was functional again I started working on a drum'n'bass project with Hackbrett-friend Roland Schiltknecht.
At the end of the year, I started to record short stories and little poems written by Assi, the mother of our two sons put to music

2006 sees the release of "Sha" and "Besinnungslose Zeiten", the album with Assi's words... There was also a great recording session of rootsical music from Uganda (two CD's for the Face Music label) and "Bann", another solo excursion of my Sha-partner Schiltknecht.

2007 was an intense time of enlarging the barn and the atelier with a bright, inviting guest-room for eventual indoor-recording. Besides some sessions with Betty Legler and Hubert Osterwalder, some work for a local band, there was this neat remake of White Noise's "Hidden Dreams" with Heinz Vetsch. The keyboards on "Hidden Dreams" where brilliantly harboured out by Hybrid Kid (...) Morgan Fisher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Fisher

an award from Spectrasonics may give a hint, what kind of productions we cherish...
http://www.spectrasonics.net/omnisphere_teaser/episode_07_index.html
t'was very sweet to have been directly adressed by Spectrasonics director and creative mastermind Eric Persing...

2008 I made the music for two films, one of which was for the non-violent communication centre "Metapuls". A good thing, really. More people should be more empathetic...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Rosenberg
Then I had the pleasure to record and mix two CDs with/for the Mongolian ensemble Khan Bogd again. This time as a quintet.
For our birthdays (...) Steve Gregory came for a creative stay and blew his genuine trademark on six pieces I'm working on for fun:
- In summer, my elder son had to do some housework in music and I helped him working out a rap (a cool cover of Fanta Vier's "Die da"). For fun I recited him the final stanza of an austrian cabaretist's rap ("Opern-Boogie") which I still knew by heart since my early teens, which left him puzzled and which triggered the desire to harbour out in the beginning of

2009 an ambitious "tribute to Georg Kreisler". However, due to lack of "Füdlä" (civil courage, balls, guts), I abandoned the plan and focused rather on work with Alan Kushan, who laid the foundations in an ever so pleasant stay for 3 weeks in spring for an incredible "buffet" of scents, flavours, tones and shades for me to dwell in for the next humpty weeks/months/years, to "build up" another journey of just joyful noise (Alan's secret wish probably being to see a sequel to "SHA"...). This incredible Santur player also klicked in the place for some extraordinary solos on some isolated works, amongst which a "just for fun" cover (in reggae) of Simon Dupree & the Big Sounds' "Kites" or Bucovina Club's "Sadaroga Dub". Just before my old buddy Heinz Vetsch left us in summer (R.I.P.), there was yet another cover ready of political activist Robert Wyatt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wyatt
(with fantastic contributions again from Morgan Fisher).
Record sales going down the drain since several years now, it strengthens my position/conviction (since 1997), that making music here means much more than vile commerce, so I announced "officially going out of business". Of course, I will continue all the more and all the more unfestered by expectations, speculations/gamblings, mercantile considerations. It is very pleasant to realise this potential totally "in the shade". What comes, comes when it's good enough.
So I can enjoy my hearty teamwork with my old neighbour/guitarist Hubert Osterwalder (from my Gumbo days) just for the sake of it and - of course - I also continue to make that film music for the movie that's not been made yet... - of which I put together a private edition/release CD AGR 016: "Music for the blind - with booklet for the deaf"...
 

And I still dream to whorship one day some of my hobbies again: go fishing with Henry and read.