«works best when you play this with some considerable volume. It is then that one starts to hear all the small details that may otherwise be lost in the storm that is this music. And a most pleasant storm it is.» – Vital Weekly #1287
A Tree in a Field presents the fourth release of our series of black & white coloured covers and is dedicated to that particular place where Swiss Avantgarde musicians go to after work.
What started in December 2015 with the recording of the six tracks in the exceptional acoustics of SRF Radiostudio Zürich, known as home of numerous recordings in the classical field, has found its conclusion in «WM». The post-mortem – and probably last – album of MIR. The roughs were meticulously refined and coloured over a period of five years by Papiro and producer Alex Buess. In Memoriam of Daniel Buess, who sadly disappeared in the cold month of February 2016, just days after approving the first and most intrinsic overdubs – Drummer extraordinaire in MIR, 16-17 and Ensemble Phoenix among others and dearly missed by music aficionados, friends and family alike.
Founded in 2005 by Daniel Buess, Papiro and Michael Zaugg, MIR were inspired by radical precursors 16-17 and spiced with a mutual admiration for Techno Animal, Iannis Xenakis, Sun Ra and This Heat. With the latter they shared the concept of a skilled percussionist teaming up with non-musicians. Zaugg (now of Pure Mania fame) contributed with abstract electronics and Papiro picked up the guitar because he had never played it before, developing his own playing and tuning style. Inevitably rhythms were emphasised, chord changes became superfluous and texture abundant. The group remained instrumental, with the occasional exception of Papiro singing Battiato’s «Aria di rivoluzione» on tour. Although Daniel’s drumming was closer to heavy machinery than funk, the band always had a particular attention for West-African grooves. Guest percussionists would join on stage and in the studio. With the addition of Marlon McNeill and the introduction of the Indian Shehnai and the Tibetan Dungchen, the group shifted from physicality to transcendence.
«WM» is the testimony of this evolution and a preview of a new starting point where MIR would have continued. It’s their first album with Yanik Soland, who previously was an often-seen live companion onstage, and one of the few bass players that could match Daniel’s muscular drumming style, to the point of the two dissolving into one unified colossus. A further addition is Papiro’s violin, rounding off MIR’s monumentality with sparkles of light.
