The Swiss experimental Diatribes duo of multi-instrumentalist Cyril Bondi and electronics player d’incise (aka Laurent Peter) began the L’apport (The contribution) series by revisiting Diatribes’ concept of a duo plus guest, a concept supposedly exhausted during the duo’s early «improvised period». Diatribes established a score as a tool, a working space, for collectively rewriting the music through the contribution of the guest improvisers, their technique, their aesthetic, and the proposal of melodic material of their choice. This series hosted hurdy-gurdy and bagpipe player Lise Barkas, cellist Stefan Thut, sax player Jean-Luc Guionnet, and violinist Clara Levy.
Swiss-German vocal artist Natalie Peters initiated the last installation in this series for Insub.Collective, a quintet that features fellow vocal artist Antoine Läng, violinist Anouck Genthon, soprano sax player Christophe Berthet, tenor sax player Esther Vaucher, Bondi on harmonium, and d’incise on electronics. This installation was done in association with Carovana091 and the project We See You – Sound the Alarm, calling for experimental musicians and artists to respond to the reality of war and destruction in Gaza. All benefits go to the Ghasan Abu Sita Children’s Fund and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
It is an unsettling 35-minute piece, led by the mourning, wordless voices of Läng and Peters, as no words can capture the magnitude of horrors inflicted on the Palestinian population of Gaza. The Insub.Collective embraces the crying, vulnerable voices with a minimalist, ethereal yet friction-based, disturbing dimension that stresses the imminent, endless threat to the survival of the Gazans. The sudden silences emphasize even further the silence of the Western governments to the horrors of the war. This deep listening, touching piece shows how free music suggests the most honest, humble form of sonic resistance to human atrocities.
Swiss cellist Sara Käser and Peters have played free improvised music for more than ten years, and have developed a shared language that touches the raw, delicate, poetic, absurdist, and vulnerable, flowing between conscious and unconscious realities, between dream and heightened wakefulness. The duo released its debut studio album, Monde Kreisen, in 2025 (Selftape, a sub-label of Unit Records). The follow-up album Die Venusbeule was recorded live at Morphinraum Berlin, October 2024, with Japanese-born, Berlin-based violist Marie Takahashi.
Die Venusbeule offers a completely different side of Peters than the one captured on L’apport: Sound the Alarm. It is a collection of six playful, sensual, eccentric, and Dadaist pieces «from hearts that know chaos, loneliness, and passion». The trio guarantees that it is the «perfect Rescue Drops – for when life’s trap springs – Because a Venusbeule can be yours anytime». Takahashi (who did the cover artwork) fits organically into the telepathic interplay of Käser and Peters. It is impossible to resist such intense, absurdist and liberating anthems, delivered with grotesque, Jaap Blonk-like or pixie-like operatic pathos and crooked instrumental authority, and equipped with generous doses of subversive humour and infectious, naked desire. It ends with a complete meltdown in the «Die Kartoffelsocke (The Potato Sock)».
Eyal Hareuveni
Antoine Läng (voice), Anouck Genthon (violin), Christophe Berthet (soprano saxophone), Cyril Bondi (harmonium), d’incise (electronics), Esther Vaucher (tenor saxophone), Natalie Peters (voice), Sara Käser (cello), Marie Takahashi (viola)
