MingBauSet is a Swiss-American collective trio exploring poetic song forms through free improvisation, featuring American master drummer and vocalist Gerry HeMINGway, and Swiss vocalist Vera BAUmann and guitarist Florestan BerSET. This multigenerational trio has been active since 2018 and released its debut album, Yakut’s Gallop (Fundacja Słuchaj) in 2021, which used poetic texts by surreal French poet Paul Éluard, Patti Smith, and German poet Levin Westermann.
The follow-up album, The Whirling, was recorded after a triumphant performance at the Willisau Jazz Festival in 2024. The trio retreated to the Lemura Recording Studio in Montagnola, Switzerland, for recording sessions in September 2024 and April 2025 to work in an atmosphere completely different from their live environment: staying in separate rooms, hearing and seeing each other via headphones and monitors, immersing themselves in stillness, layering tracks, and anticipating what would emerge together.
The Whirling is the first installment in a series of releases from more than five hours of music from these Lemura sessions. The relaxed, free-improvised atmosphere encouraged more intuitive, unpredictable dynamics that blurred the distinction between the spontaneous, instantly composed, wordless songs.
Hemingway is still a dominant voice in this trio, but his powerful, ever-resourceful playing always drives and serves the music. Hemingway sings-recites quietly about an evocative, dream-like, claustrophobic journey in the centrepiece, the 19-minute mysterious «finding nowhere», suddenly transformed into Baumann’s eccentric, pathos-filled, and urgent rhythmic vocal improvisation. Baumann’s expressive voice charges the songs with immediate, sensual impact. Berset colours the playful commotion with sharp, spiky lines, pushing these songs into uncharted, tempestuous territories.
The music flows organically with its own inner logic and suggests imaginary, almost folk-like dances and songs dancing in fantasy languages, with a strong sense of wonderment and discovery. The album ends with a seductive, light groove, aptly titled «cloud chaser», capturing the elusive brilliance of MingBauSet. Hemingway concluded that these sessions offered a «resonance of rich mystery shaped by a detailed telepathy we have refined now for many years», which he rarely felt in his long career.
Eyal Hareuveni
Gerry Hemingway (drums, voice), Vera Baumann (voice, effects), Florestan Berset (electric guitars, effects)
