Amy Macdonald – singer of worldwide hits like Mr. Rock’n’Roll, This Is The Life, Run or Don’t Tell Me That It’s Over give proof of how good pop music works: With music and lyrics that come from the soul and breathe authenticity. Amy Macdonald is in full command of her craft, in spite of being constantly surrounded by the glamour of show business. She is instinctive and direct in concert, and even though she has sold over four million records, her modesty makes her accessible and appealing. Her songs speak of her closeness to every day life, and anyone can relate to the stories they tell.

The name Gruntz stands for powerful innovation and the highest quality, not only for people in the Basel music scene. The fact that the internationally renowned jazz great George Gruntz, who died last year, was the great uncle of the young James Gruntz, does not necessarily make it easier for this newcomer to develop his own identity, however, he has managed just that. After building a solid foundation with his education at the Zurich Jazz School, he has the courage to set himself apart from his family legacy with simple, catchy songs, designing his very own musical world.

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.

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.