2024 - Year in review (part 1)
First of all, I would like to wish you a happy new year. The Christmas period has been a hectic one and I have lost a bit of momentum with the blog. I hope 2025 will also provide me with some more energy to gain the same level of output as 2024.
I would like to thank those that spent time contributing to, reading and given me compliments about the blog. I hope that you have also been able to discover some new artists and musicians too. It’s been a great ride so far. I never thought that I would have so many articles - I had previously had a music blog in 2018 which died pretty quickly, so I am already proud of what I have achieved so far.
It’s also been a pleasure delving into the music scene in Switzerland and this year has also been filled with many excellent discoveries, concerts and meeting a lot of wonderful people. I hope that I am able to remember everything across the whole year as I try to jog my memory to piece together the last twelve months. This journey wouldn’t have happened without you.
The year in numbers:
Concerts: 6 - Zuckerbecker/Chacho & Friends/AndA A AndA, Dawns Mystery/Storm)
Including 4 record release shows - Far Coast, The Supersonic Travel Agency, Binary Sunset, Mount Jacinto
Festivals: 5 - Kombinat, Alles Post- MusikFest!, Winterthurer Music Week (two days), Obenuse Fest (two bands), Humus Fest
New LPs: 16 - Far Coast (Time and Space, Outside), Car Crash Weather (terra nostra, Secondary Drowning), Winter in Deutschland (Motel Limité), ANGER MGMT. (Anger is Energy), Chacho & Friends (Magia Lumen), CMPGN (CMPGN), The Supersonic Travel Agency (Eversun), Binary Sunset (Les Grandes Vacances), Dawns Mystery (Jurassic Colour, Before Life at the Sea Ground, Hot Showers), Emzyg (52 Blue), Mouche-Miel (Satellites), Yet No Yokai (Wir sind da)
January, February, March, April:
These were the months in which the seeds were planted for the blog before going live in May.
On a cold evening in February, a couple of friends and I went to see Zuckerbecker at the Gaswerk in Winterthur. Also on the bill that evening was Chacho & Friends (now known as &Friends) and AndA A AndA. It was also the first time back at Gaswerk since I saw willibald and Delia Meshlir two years before. I was impressed by all five bands and my interest in the music scene in Switzerland continued to grow.
Not too long after, a friend of mine’s solo project, EiT played at Ebrietas with CHAUFAU and Zukunft. The guys from CHAUFAU, who came from Lausanne as part of their tour, were friendly and it made me wonder about how touring works in Switzerland, especially with the potential language barriers due to the regions.
With the upcoming kombinat festival and having enjoyed the first edition in 2022 so much, as well as the evenings they put on, it always seems to me that they have their fingers on the pulse of the music scene and always introduced me to a lot of exciting bands. The third edition of the festival also pushed me further to listen to all the bands that would be there and to know which bands I wanted to see live. The festival was excellent - Bubka at the Gotthard Bar and Dizzy Davis & Leopardo in the Waxy Bar were definitely highlights for me. Giant Moa was also great. The festival was also sold out which showed a lot of promise and interest for the music scene in Zurich and in Switzerland. Keep your eyes peeled as the line up for this year will be announced soon.
By April, it was soon decided, Reverb Dream was going to happen. After many name ideas, logo ideas and exchanges with Gerardo from Alles Post- MusikFest!, the website was soon beginning to take shape. For both editions, Alles Post- also picked out interesting bands that were not yet on my radar.
April was rounded off with a second visit to Winterthur, this time at the Salzhaus to see Long Distance Calling, a German post-metal band recommended by Dan at Heavy Weight Music in Zurich. The opening act, the Argau-based Leech, were very impressive and put on a great live show. Also a band definitely worth checking out and they released their album Sapperlot at the end of 2024.
May:
So with the blog is in place, I needed to start finding some interviews. I did a three-part series for the Alles Post- MusikFest! to introduce the festival and the bands (interview with Gerardo, bands: part 1, bands: part 2). It had also made a lot of sense to make a playlist after having listened to so many new bands and albums during the last three months.
At the same time as the other interview, I was interviewing Ueli Dutka about his upcoming LP from his solo project, Far Coast. I had bumped into him at the kombinat festival having mistakened him for Piet Alder, the head of Taxi Gauche Records, who I had met at a few other concerts in Zurich. It didn’t help that Ueli also had a tote bag from the record label, being home not to only his solo project but to another band he is in, Dawns Mystery. I still recall sitting on the sofa in my living room with the sun shining through as I edit the interview and having listened to both of the albums from Far Coast more times than I can count. I eventually put on Time and Space again four months later and it was a great listen and still holds its own. The record release party at the Waxy was a very enjoyable evening and the live band took the songs to a whole new level!
June:
June kicked off with the Alles Post- MusikFest! with five diverse artists bringing their own energy to the festival and I was able to catch all the performances from start to finish. The highlight for me was hearing Sunny Day by Zuckerbecker after being hooked on the song at the time. It was also great to meet the bands which I contacted beforehand, to get some merch from them too and the intimate and welcoming atmosphere was there for the second year running.
Having looked for alternatives for interviews, the idea for “Tell us about the scene in…” came about at the end of May. I have to say that I am a big fan of this article. It’s always great to get recommendations from people who live in the towns/cities. Since then, I haven’t been creative enough to find another type of article next to this series and interviews. Hopefully, that will change in the future.
The editions for Geneva and Basel were published in June. It’s also worth noting that both articles were the first articles published in their original language (French and German). All of the translations on the website are done by myself, there’s no copying and pasting the whole article in DeepL or something. It’s me racking my brains, using wordreference, leo, Google and other sources to try and make the article sound as English as possible.
I am a big fan of the album Toute sortie est définitive by Adieu Gary Cooper and the song, La Machine, will always remind me of the early days of the blog. Nicolas, the vocalist from the band as well as the co-founder of Cheptel Records, seemed to be an obvious choice. The interview went very smoothly, Nicolas sent his replies quickly and gave a lot of details about Geneva.
The Basel edition allowed me to get back in contact with Roman from P. Noir. I had met him at the first Alles Post- MusikFest! and he has been active on the music scene in Basel for over 20 years. I was very thankful for his replies to know about the scene there. Like Geneva, I have been to both cities a few times but not since creating the blog, but I wouldn’t have known where to start with artists and venues.
In June, the interview with Chacho for the upcoming album was also published. As well as being a fan of the music, I had always been interested in her involvement in the special visual universe which she has created to accompany her music. Shortly after the interview, I got myself a copy of the album before they all sold out. I look forward to following the next steps of her musical career.
Lastly, when I think back to June, I also think about the Jane’s Addiction concert at the Xtra in Zurich. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the math-rock duo, Mouche-Miel as the opening act like in Lausanne. The album, Satellites, was the soundtrack for most of the train ride up to Germany on the day that the European Championships started in the middle of the month. I would soon get a physical copy of the album later on in the year.
Part 2 coming soon.