Home » Jazz Musicians » Lucca Fries

Lucca Fries

Lucca Fries is a Swiss pianist and composer based in Basel. His work is shaped by rhythm, repetition and drone-like piano textures, drawing from jazz, minimalism and rock.

With his bands FRI3SER, Hely and Ikarus, he has performed at festivals such as the Montreux Jazz Festival, Reykjavík Jazz Festival, Internationale Jazzwoche Burghausen and EFG London Jazz Festival, and toured across Europe, Japan, India, Russia and South Africa.

Ikarus: Plasma

by Geno Thackara
June 5, 2022

While they have an ambition worthy of their mythological namesake, this Ikarus is in no danger of melting and crashing after flying too high. Their exuberance is a little less wild yet, in its own way, no less adventurous. This quintet melds the sum of its minimalist parts into something transcendent yet always understated. Without needing to shoot for the sky, they look for a subtler kind of euphoria in gliding. For music which is essentially minimalist, it ...

“Seriously hypnotic music.”
— Dave Sumner, Bird Is The Worm

“Further cravings to return to this minimalistic music will never leave you.”
— Andrew Halley, The Progressive Aspect

“The sonic intensity this acoustic duo creates is extraordinary.”
— Frank von Niederhäusern, Kulturtipp

“To the attentive listener, Hely’s music unfolds like the colours of a richly populated deep sea revealing themselves to a diver.”
— Manfred Papst