Selection 2023

For five years, Anna Erhard was a member of a Basel-based female trio, Serafyn, who released two albums, the second also on Radicalis. Their music stood out for their intricate vocal harmonies and their use of a cello. Feeling restless, Erhard relocated to Berlin for a personal and creative reboot. For her debut album, Erhard has developed a new sound based on quiet and laid-back semi-electronic musical backing and focusing on her own, laconic vocal delivery.

The hi-octane four-piece from Zurich fronted by Gini Jungi announced their arrival a couple of years ago with a hugely enjoyable – and successful! – debut album packed with shimmering guitars, powerful vocals and very morish melodies. Their follow-up, due out any minute, is just as powerful. This band rocks!

Spain has Rosalía, Switzerland has Baby Volcano. From French to Spanish, the artist blows hot and cold, dishing out her rap, trap and electropop tracks with swagger. Ear-splitting whispers, hushed rage, her minimalist line merges opposites into a mesmerising whole. On stage, she transforms into a masked performer and delivers breathtaking shows with organic instinct that’ll take you by storm. Baby Volcano has quiet strength but watch out for the rumbling volcano beneath!

Before the four friends of Batbait release their debut album in mid-September, they will make a detour to Waves Festival in Vienna. Batbait know how to inspire with their raw, but at the same time very charming and playful sounds, luring their prey by creating the perfect mix of pop, rock and garage. A must see for all fans of good guitar music.

Janine Cathrein and her band, a tight-knit gang of passionate and talented musicians known together as Black Sea Dahu, are back with a second album. „I Am My Mother“ is the successor to several EPs and the critically acclaimed debut album, „White Creatures“ released in 2018.

Elastic Plastic Space Power Gangster Future Pop – that’s how pop rebels IKAN HYU describe their musical style. Founded in 2016, the reputation of the explosive duo from Winterthur/Zurich is making waves – before they released their first EP “ZEBRA” in October 2018, IKAN HYU already played more than 50 concerts all over Switzerland, among others as support act for the British rock band Royal Blood. As part of Lift up (Noisey Switzerland), IKAN HYU was listed as one of ten bands that will own the year 2018. With ZEBRA, the IKANs were chosen as SRF Best Talent of the month of November.

This voice is breaking downtime and boundaries. Joya Marleen, 19 years old, surprises with incredible warmth and depth and outstanding songwriting. “I’ve always written songs, long before I knew something about verses, bridges or a chorus.” She wins 22 three Swiss Music Awards in the categories „Best Talent“, „Best Female Act“ and „Best Hit“. On tour the young artist fascinates live with her strong charisma and her way of telling stories.

Kety Fusco took the international avant-garde scene by storm whe she released her first album ‘DAZED’ in 2020. Her music is a mix of perseverance and passion, sometimes danceable electronic music or organic research applied to experimentation and contemporary music. Kety Fusco produces sounds and ambiences, and manipulates them with electronic pedals, scratches, destroying the bow on the harp and screaming inside the sound box. New album ‘The Harp, Chapter I’ is scheduled for release in March 2023.

Born and raised on the Eastern shores of Lake Zurich, Kings Elliot was a Kindergarten pupil when she decided once and for all that she would be a singer. Teaching herself to play the piano, she produced her first recordings as a teenager before moving to London in pursuit of her dream. There, she attended one of the many “pop schools” that have sprung up in the past few years, profiting, she says, mostly in terms of professional connections made via instructors and fellow students. A huge fan of Lorde and Lana Del Rey, Kings Elliot’s songs are deeply personal and unsparingly honest in the way they approach her own fears, hopes and anxieties.

Initially destined for a career in jazz or classical music, La Colère changed paths after discovering the Scandinavian electro band Röyksopp. The multi-talented artist composes, performs and produces her own electro-pop soundscapes with exhilarating layers of synthesisers. A true musical revelation, the crooner-voiced, Geneva-based artist explores spellbinding music, blending a seaside atmosphere and uneasy chills with relentless retro-futuristic hits. A wonderful talent!

With their riotous crazed mixture of 1960s surf guitar twang, Cheesy Listening, Jamaican dub mystery, Afro-Beat and, of late, lashings of samba, the jazz-inflected instrumental combo L’Eclair offer a pretty unique and irresistible introduction to the joys of dancing.

Combining a Dadaist sense of humour with an extensive range of interests that include Krautrock, dub reggae, musique concrete, Pascal Comelade, Tav Falvo and Pere Ubu, the Bernese trio Omni Selassi featuring singer and guitarist Rea Dubach together with the two drummers, Mirko Schwab and Lukas Rutzen, will present themselves in resolutely strange and captivating top form, having recently completed an extensive tour of Italy, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, and Switzerland.

Bored by the boundaries of western pop music, Swiss psychedelic world rock band Saitün is exploring the wider possibilities of middle eastern music on the 2022 debut ‘Al’ Azif’. Like the sound of a buzzing swarm of locusts above the desert, a diversity of genres and cultural identities is woven into a playful but urgent firework. Saitün manages to seduce the listener into a bumpy adventure with an uncertain and surprising ending.

Soft Loft is the musical portrait of 25-year-old Jorina Stamm, who translates everyday melancholy into relatable, linguistic images – into songs, building a musical safe space. At the same time, Soft Loft is a band. A group of people from a small town, who took their time, found their sonic identity in spring of 2022 – and emerged out of previous projects. The band brings the uniquely soft-loft-vibe and takes songs of their for 2023 announced debut album to the stages this year already. As proof of how fun melancholy can be, if you let it. Music written for a world that needs more of it.

Varnish La Piscine is a singer-songwriter from Geneva whom music has chosen as a worthy representative. He first became known as a producer and then released three solo projects. The latest, Metronome Pole Dance Twist Amazone is the soundtrack to his first film, ‘Les Contes du Cockatoo’. These works contributed to starting a new collaboration with Pedro Winter, boss of the Ed Banger label, who signed him in 2021. His new project is the culmination of great ambitions that will be seen, heard and defended soon.