What about music? This is the question that Lisa Stansfield’s disheartened fans have been asking themselves for years. After the album ‘The Moment’ in 2004, the singer left music behind, although she had managed to transport eighties pop into the nineties with her debut ‘Affection’ and the worldwide hit ‘All Around The World’ in 1989. As the ‘British Queen of Soul’, she sold more than 20 million albums. After 2004, the Englishwoman preferred performing on theater stages and in TV film series, until she revealed in an interview in 2012 that she was writing songs again. She embarked on a successful tour with these new songs just a few months later. Now, Lisa has finally returned to her fans with her album ‘Seven’. The question of music has finally been answered: Lisa sings soul with such power that it feels like she never took a break.
Matt Bianco plays Baloise Session
After the frenzy of punk and new wave, it was almost a relief when, surprisingly it was an English band that came onto the scene with such suave coolness that they brought elegant lounge evenings back into style in 1984. «Whose Side Are You On?» asked Matt Bianco with their debut, before answering the question with their worldwide hit «Half A Minute», convincing us to be on the side of beautiful singing, smooth Latin rhythms and sophisticated pop music. The band was successful with two more albums before Matt Bianco broke up. Although the core duo Mark Reilly and Mark Fisher continued to regularly release albums, Matt Bianco disappeared into the fringe of music history, until the band brought back the original line up in 2004 with the album «Matt’s Mood» which helped to initiate the eighties revival. Ever since then, discerning pop fans enjoy spending their evenings in the lounge or at one of the rare concerts of Matt Bianco.
Rebekka Bakken plays Baloise Session
Rebekka Bakken is a fantastic singer, with a voice pure as a bell, which reaches the highest heights and the most sensual lows. She is also a storyteller. «As soon as there are words, it is all about the lyrics. As singers, we are only the delivery girls», she has been quoted as saying – a gross understatement in her case. She has mastered the art of putting the spotlight on the song itself, letting it shine in colourful light, while never hiding behind the song. Whether Rebekka Bakken sings songs by Ludwig Hirsch or Tom Waits, rock songs or intimate ballads, whether accompanied by jazz guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel, a rock band, or a big band, her iconic voice is immediately recognizable. It goes right under the skin, into the belly and head and directly to the heart. What more could one say of a singer?
Alex Hepburn plays Baloise Session
The English singer Alex Hepburn worked through the painful experiences and losses of her childhood by writing in her diary. The journal entries later became rhymes, then lyrics and finally songs, which she sings with verve and a powerful voice: This combination has made her a shooting star of neo soul. The resulting songs are so powerful that Hepburn’s debut single ‘Pain Is’ and the debut album which followed, ‘Together Alone’, immediately achieved success in the European charts. It is no wonder since the modern soul of this young English singer is a product of the blues and rock of her childhood. Her voice is as rough and strong as a double whisky. Her fans celebrate her, depending on their age, as a new Pink or a new Janis Joplin or, and everyone agrees on this, as a worthy successor to Amy Winehouse. In the end, the comparisons are unimportant, because Alex Hepburn is Alex Hepburn.
Stress plays Baloise Session
The music of Lausanne rapper Stress is loud, bombastic and heavy on rhythm, just as it should be in hip hop. But if you listen closely, you will discover an undeniable sensibility to injustice and those little every day things that make life tough. The cocky, adrenaline-pumped city rapper has long since become a skilled and sophisticated verbal acrobat with his own fashion label. This could also be the result of his failed marriage with former Miss Switzerland Melanie Winiger. Both went their separate ways and the path of Stress led right to the Swiss charts. His albums and singles can be found there on a regular basis. And yet, Stress has kept his sense of insubordination and irony.
Iyeoka plays Baloise Session
As a pharmacist, Iyeoka sold medicine for physical ailments in her hometown of Boston and spent her free time singing poetry. As the front woman of the collective Iyeoka & The Rock by Funk Tribe, she was greatly admired by fans of the music of Gil Scott Heron and the Last Poets, and both of her albums were highly praised. Big city anger was evident in her songs, her intellectually demanding choice of words, and her sharp gift of observation, but also goodness, devotion and beauty. Three years ago, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants decided to start prescribing only medicine for the spirit and soul. She quit her job and in 2010, she released the album with the pragmatic title «Say Yes»: meaning say yes to life, to love. Since then Iyeoka is like Tracy Chapman, Lauryn Hill, Shirley Bassey and Sade – you could say she is the essence of all four with her sense of justice, rhythm, vocal power and gentle grace.
Patricia Kaas plays Baloise Session
‘In order to sing Edith Piaf, you need life experience and courage,’ says Patricia Kaas. What she means is that one must understand the emotions, the biography and the artistry of the great French chansonière to bring her songs to life. Maybe her own dramatic biography has made Patricia Kaas the ideal interpreter of the legendary Piaf repertoire. She succeeds by giving it her own personal note without tampering with the original authenticity of the chanson, which takes melancholy, irony and disillusion and combines it with an element of pride. Patricia Kaas has managed to create a bridge to the current pensive, intense acoustic sounds of the Seine metropolis, carried out into the world by trendy protagonists like Woodkid.
Schmidt plays Baloise Session
The provocative cabaret songs of the golden twenties are the source of inspiration for the 23-year-old Berlin singer Elisa Schmidt and her band. With her smoky voice, she gives the dry jazz-rock arrangements a sexy gangster charm, which she herself calls ‘Pop Noir’. The ‘pop’ part expressing an intoxicating lust for life and a mature swing vibe and modern urbanity, all in the same breath. The ‘noir’ part is provided by her voice and the dark, sensual enigmas she sings about. One of her greatest hits so far was the song ‘Heart Shaped Gun’, which climbed up the German charts as the title song of the German crime show ‘Tatort’.
Lovebugs play Baloise Session
The Lovebugs, a Swiss Britpop inspired band from Basel, Switzerland founded in 1992, make music to live their dream, to live in the moment, to capture their experiences in snapshots and to listen carefully for the subtle, finer sounds in life. ‘We gave every idea for a song a chance and we rehearsed until this magic moment came – or didn’t come,’ says drummer Simon Ramseier. Bassist Florian Senn adds: ‘We worked without pressure or a specific concept and only allowed ourselves one luxury: A lot of time.’ The laid back atmosphere carried over from the songs to the entire band. ‘We are more colourful again now,’ says singer Adrian Sieber. “In our songwriting, it was important to me that the melancholy songs should not drown in sadness, but should still have a spark of hope.”
Kyla La Grange plays Baloise Session
The songs of young singer Kyla La Grange from the British town of Watford are far from melancholy. She is the daughter of two hippies: her mother is from South Africa and her father is from Zimbabwe, and she was shaped by the openness of world culture and self-discovery. It is not surprising that she wrote her first songs at the age of five, ten years before she was given her first guitar. Kyla La Grange talks about being very shy in her childhood. She finally found her audience at the University of Cambridge when she was studying philosophy. The campus was full of open mic sessions, which influenced her sound and her songwriting. Kyla’s appearance is fascinating. She looks like a top model, has a smoky voice which is not sexy and sweet, but rather mysterious and haunting. She lets her folk songs grow into dark stories that hang in your heart like bats on the rafters of a fairy tale castle steeped in legend.