Simon Berz is a Swiss transdisciplinary drummer, sound artist, and music educator based in Switzerland and Berlin. His aesthetics are shaped by a sustained engagement with natural materials, particularly resonating stones, and their sonic transformation through electronic manipulation. Berz creates an electrified drum set using analog electronics and feedback, as well as an amplified lithophon built with stones he found in the Alps. Berz has collaborated with Bill Laswell, Toshinori Kondo, Nils Petter Molvær, Lauren Newton, and Paul Lovens, among many others.

Berz’s Tectonic project began in 2015 during his research stay in Iceland. It is an instrument that combines basalt stones with electronic components, representing an interdisciplinary approach to sound research. Since then, his geological sound explorations have expanded to other continents. The album is a concise portrait of this project, featuring Berz playing drums, a million-year-old five basalt stones from Iceland, electronics, field recordings, and other DIY instruments. It was recorded at Studios Stöðvarfjörður in Iceland in May 2025, with additional field recordings of Phyllit slide stones in Izu Oshima in Japan and corals recorded at the Pacitan Tabuhan Cave in Java (with the local experimental Senyawa duo who work with corals as instruments) and field recordings in Arnarstapi in Iceland.

Obviously, the usage of stones is not original or even innovative. Composer Christian Wolff’s groundbreaking Stones instructed musicians to «make sounds with stones, draw sounds out of stones, using a number of sizes and kinds (and colours)». Austrian contemporary guitarist and composer Gunter Schneider played with stone sculptures by Tyrolean sculptor Kassian Erhart, Tracking Stones’ Voices (ORF, 2006). Norwegian percussionist Terje Isungset recorded an album with instruments coming from nature itself, such as stones, slate, pieces of wood, and a ram’s horn, Suites of Nature, Vol.1 – Essence of Stone (All Ice, 2017), to name just a few examples.

Berz spins the amplified stones into dance-driven and even hip-hop textures, with some gamelan-tinged, ambient soundscapes. The outcome is genre-binding, playful, seductive, and quite addictive, directly motivating all kinds of physical movements.

Eyal Hareuveni

Simon Berz (drums, 5 Icelandic basalt stones, DIY Instruments, electronics, field recordings)