Carte Blanche
Simon Grab – Album Release «Porœs» (-OUS Records)
Simon Grab & David Meier
Electronic / PartyExperimentalElectronic
Carte Blanche: Simon Grab
Funk, ska, hip-hop, dub and noise - you might think that these musical styles are worlds apart. But in a conversation, Simon Grab explained to me how these musical styles are connected in his biography and what we can expect on his third and fourth Carte Blanche evening.
Through local radio, Grab also came into contact with the Schimpfluch group, consisting of Dave Phillips, Rudolf Eb.er and Joke Lanz, the Taktlos Festival and other turntablists who influenced him further.Today, Simon Grab hardly plays guitar anymore, instead he has committed himself to no-input mixing, a feedback technique that is also used in dub. Here, Simon Grab feeds the outputs of a mixing console into the inputs and, as these signal paths are never perfect, small disturbances occur somewhere that can be amplified and further processed. Simon Grab refers to this as ‘working with errors’. Depending on the project, other synthesisers or beat machines are added. However - and this runs through every one of his projects - this random element means that no two songs can ever be performed in the same way. Each concert is therefore a unique, unrepeatable experience.
Political music and visions of the future
‘It's very important to me that I can sense a certain attitude in the people I work with - and that this can then flow into the music. [...] I don't see it as a direct mediation mission that I have, but I couldn't allow myself not to take a stand in some way in this current situation in which the world and society find themselves.’
One topic that particularly concerns him, for example, is the Anthropocene and the impact of humans on the planet and our environment. ‘Fraktura’, a piece for dance, live visuals and music, which was performed at Simon Grab's first Carte Blanche evening as part of the Videoex festival, can also be read in a very apocalyptic way. ‘But only up to the point where you have to think about how our resources are being exploited.’A different kind of vision of the future can be seen in a somewhat older project, the radio play ‘Hirnmusik’ (2015). The core question of this research work and this transdisciplinary project was, according to Simon Grab: ‘How can we use auditory imagination and creative processes? We humans can imagine sound and do so in very different ways and with varying degrees of precision. I wondered how artists deal with this in creative processes. There was also a complex of topics centred around brain research: we can imagine something, for example a song, or compose something in our heads. Is there a way to play it out and record it?’ There is still no real answer to this question, but who knows how soon it might be possible... You can listen to the radio play and the numerous interviews conducted by Simon Grab here. 09.02.2025: Simon Grab & David Meier – Album Release «Porœs» (-OUS Records)
On his third Carte Blanche evening, Simon Grab meets the Swiss drummer David Meier, who is known from bands such as Schnellertollermeier or Hunter-Gatherer. Some of the first musical encounters between him and Simon Grab took place in the rehearsal room, where they not only played together but also recorded what they had just created. The result: their promising, high-energy album ‘Porœs’, which emerged from these recordings and will be released on 7 February on -OUS Records. Here is a little amuse-bouche in advance:
09.02.2025: errad0 – New Project Premiere
On 9 February, not only will a new record be presented, but a new duo will also be celebrated: With errad0, Simon Grab joins forces with the Brazilian musician Antigo. The self-proclaimed genre description ‘Proibidão Industrial Funk Carioca Experimental’ makes you sit up and take notice.
A brief digression: Proibidão means ‘strictly forbidden’ and is a subgenre of Brazilian funk carioca. The songs deal with life in the favelas and are hymns of praise to the local gangs of Rio de Janeiro, who both control the neighbourhoods and ensure that people are socially supported, explains Simon Grab. ‘At the bailes’ - parties that take place at self-built sound systems - ’you sometimes see members of the local gang walking through the crowd with an assault rifle in their hands.’ It is both a signal to the police and a presence in the neighbourhood, for example as a controlling and protective authority.Antigo is inspired by this Proibidão and realises his own interpretation of it. His texts deal with local violence, the presence of weapons, a non-functioning system and non-functioning infrastructures. Simon Grab explains: ‘He is an MC on the one hand and a visual artist on the other. He mainly paints and tries to process certain things. You can also see machine guns painted on sandpaper in his pictures, for example. [...] He incorporates that into his lyrics. And that goes very well with my sounds.’03.04.20205: Yao Bobby x Simon Grab feat. Freeky (aka Nathalie Fröhlich)
Their friendship goes back 18 years and began in Ouagadougou when Simon Grab was there for theatre and music productions and Yao Bobby was there at the same time for a hip-hop festival.
Yao Bobby is an Afro-futurist rapper and visual artist who pioneered African hip-hop in the 1990s as part of a hip-hop group from Togo, which in turn was part of a pan-African hip-hop movement. This created important political networks in West Africa, which gave rise to Sankara movements such as Le Balai Citoyen against former President Blaise Compraré in Burkina Faso. Even today, Yao Bobby still uses music as an activist medium: ‘You can sense an urgency in his lyrics,’ says Simon Grab, ‘they are very political. Sometimes he wraps them up a little more or less in stories, metaphors.’ No matter how well they are packaged: It is precisely because of these political messages that Yao Bobby has often had problems with Togo's authoritarian regime. That is why Yao Bobby tends to live under the radar today.Lausanne-based rapper Nathalie Fröhlich, who will also be joining us on this evening, raps over house grooves and techno beats and has been increasingly shaking up the Swiss music scene for some time now, breaking conventions and inspiring people across linguistic and national borders. Under her pseudonym ‘Freeky’, she is now venturing even further into the experimental realms.
03.04.2025: SignupSignup, Zainab Lascandri, is best known as one half of the duo None of Them and on stage with Big Zis, but she is also active in performance and theatre. On this fourth and final Carte Blanche evening, she will be presenting her solo performance. We are already excited!
Simon Grab's Carte Blanche Evenings
Carte Blanche
Simon Grab – New Project Premiere
errad0
Experimental
Carte Blanche
Simon Grab
Yao Bobby x Simon Grab feat. Freeky (aka Nathalie Fröhlich)
ExperimentalRap / R'n'B / BrassElectronic / PartyRapElectronic
Carte Blanche
Simon Grab
Signup
Experimental
Carte Blanche
Simon Grab – Videoex im Walcheturm
Fractura
ExperimentalElectronic / PartyElectronic
Carte Blanche
Simon Grab – im Kunstraum Walcheturm
Simon Grab feat. Yao Bobby
ExperimentalElectronic / PartyElectronic
Carte Blanche
Simon Grab – im Kunstraum Walcheturm
Dhangsha
ExperimentalElectronic / PartyElectronic
