The Bern Project / Rhys Chatham

The Bern Project
Rhys Chatham

"In the summer of 2008, Rhys Chatham visited Bern, Switzerland for a Guitar Trio performance together with local musicians that the club had recruited for him. They rehearsed during the day and played a fabulous show that night. Rhys was blown away by the skills of the drummer and bass player and talked about plans to form a trio - half a year later he was back in Bern and introduced Julian Sartorius (drums) and Mago Flueck (bass) to new compositions he brought along. Beat Unternährer on trombone joined as guest musician.

Reto Mäder (RM74, Sum Of R, Ural Umbo) recorded many hours of these sessions on a multi-track machine. Over the next few months, Mäder listened to the recordings, separated the wheat from the chaff, selected the best parts and made pre-mixes. He even mixed different parts of the takes together and sent them to Rhys, who noted what he wanted to have changed or replaced. After more than 100 hours of work, a brand new Rhys Chatham album was finally mixed and mastered.

Some tracks are only slightly modified from the original recordings, with just a few effects added or small sections from other parts of the recording sessions mixed in. Other sections emerged purely in the mixing studio and were created from different parts of the sessions. And some sections were complemented by extra instrumental tracks played by Mäder himself.

The result is an album of new Rhys Chatham tracks with this band - something you haven't heard since the Die Donnergötter recordings of the 80s..."

HinterZimmer-records.com

More on Rhys Chatham soon.