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The Eve of Peeni Waali -  Production Info

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First and last CD of the turn of the century (CD 1 was released on december 31st 1999 and the second volume on january 1st 2’000)...

After the release of "The Dawn" (1991) and "The Return" (1997) I was still left with plenty unfinished tunes and many new ideas. Hence I decided to kick-off yet another 'sequel' of Peeni Waali (jamais deux sans trois!...), figuring I'd complete the round of this 12 year composition cycle as a kind of trylogy.

I realised there was too much music for one single CD. The culminating point is a double CD now!
Always learning from the past experiences (and/or critics), I shaped one CD more song-oriented and the other instrumental like most of the previous material was.

While I was reworking an old rythm (from 1981!), I wanted to adapt a poem of Swiss troubadour Mani Matter. The idea to do it in the four national languages of our country brought in
Linard Bardill. for the Romansch part.
The italian part of the poem was done by
Marco Zappa, also a musician/poet in his own right of the southern part of Switzerland, the canton of Tessin.
Never mind the french part.
The tune was ideal to set some wicked instrumental part on top of the poem. And the occasion presented itself with the arrival of
Sebastian Piekarek  who'd come here to do baritone and alto sax on Daniel Spahni's solo album.

Obviously new musicians were to cross my path. Again recording for
Face Music, I met more people from Mongolia and the MongolSka was born.

I've always wanted to meet a trumpeter who played with Rico
Eddie 'TanTan' Thornton , so I took advantage of a stay in London (early 1999) to arrange a recording session that would also include violonist
Johnny T. (from the Dennis Bovell Dub Band). At the same time, it was nice to meet Rico and Steve Gregory again and record some more with them. That session also brought in a new hornsman: trombonist
Peter Thoms.

Naturally, I'd include my pal
Heinz Vetsch (one of the jodlers on Nice Time) to be featured as lead-vocalist this time. Heinz, a very knowledgeable melomane - running the great recordshop "Bajazzo" in Buchs/SG - introduced me to
Raphael Zweifel. Getting to know Raphael better, it was a pleasure to introduce him to 
Roland Schiltknecht for his "Tunsch" album. A teamwork that became a real friendship in that 10 years later, a tight and creative teamwork resultet which we labelled as "Peeni Waali vs. Schildpatt (or Schildpatt vs. Peeni Waali... ;-)" : - (the  album "SHA").
Drawing the 'casting-net' closer, and as it happened so often, there were also 'last minute' ideas to finish a tune. That brought in bassplayer
Walter Nigg and his son
Maurice Nigg. Walter had made the great sleeve for the "Kulu" CD and Maurice already played turntables on the previous project.
And just before mixing the last tune, there was jet another player joining the club:
Jack Frei, a fine pedal steel guitar player.

And last but not least - the internet being a great old finder - I relocated an old acquaintance,
Jürgen Stark, who triggered many a connection (in his younger, more productive days), proposed to have his chum
Petra Stark make the design for the sleve of the Eve (tu piges?)...