Appropriate to a collaboration with a new music ensemble, many of Niggli's pieces are suites. The lead-off track, for instance, is an anthemic anti-nationa- list suite (based on rhythmic relations between 3 and 7, if you're counting ...) that's perfectly designed for Minton, who is something of a specialist in Anti-Anthems, having sung wondrous versions of the anarchist anthem in the past. On "Sweet Sweat" Niggli's rock roots are showing – after Minton's alternately strangulated, surreal and serene intro, the ghost of Zappa lurks somewhere nearby, in the rock and jazz-rock outbursts. The drummer explains that the sweatiness of the project was both positive - sweat of a good performance ("I love intensity and energy, to create music under the biggest physical and mental presence") – and also more troubling ("writing this whole program was like having a disease, fever"). The sweats. Trying to come up with something compelling, something right, something not trite. Sweat it out. Niggli worked from the kit, creating material, singing parts over the rhythms, then slowly developing it into arrangements and finally these suites. "I like to write complex parts, but always give enough freedom that all the musicians, especially the improvisors, can interpret my music. Then it becomes a collective work!

Cover Art: Eliane Binggeli and Pino Esposito
Liner Notes: John Corbett
Photos: Francesca Pfeffer

All compositions by Lucas Niggli (SUISA). Recorded 27.- 29. October 2003 at SWR-Studio Baden-Baden by Alfred Habelitz for Radio SWR2 Neue Musik/Jazz. Mixed by Alfred Habelitz and Lucas Niggli at SWR-Studio Baden-Baden, Januar 2004. Mastered by Walter Schmid at Oakland Studios Winterthur, March 2004. Recording produced by Reinhard Kager/SWR and Intakt Records. CD produced by Intakt Records. Executive production: Patrik Landolt. Published and copright by Intakt Records.