Simon Berz

His work in experimental and improvised music, in sound art and new forms of performance aims at innovation, interaction and participation. Simon Berz is a drummer and sound artist. He uses improvised music to create bridges between his compositions and performances to visual arts, dance and film. His work takes place in artist-run spaces as well as in clubs, galleries and concert halls.
Since his youth he has been involved in developing instruments, sound/art installations and performances based on listening and observing, sound and materials research, on the implementation of experimental formats and their aesthetic mediation. As well as developing his own rhythmic and sound language through an electro-acoustic drumset called the Rocking Desk, he has also developed a “lithophone” consisting of stones producing a sound made by liquid dripping from drip bags that he amplifies and distorts electronically. In 2011, this sound installation was awarded the “Werkjahr des Kantons Zug” prize.

Simon Berz works together with instrument builders, technicians and scientists to design sound installations focussing on phenomena like resonance and feedback. How do you interact with ice, water, stone, air, wind and fire? What happens in the space between people? What is resonance in technical as well as in psychological and energy terms? The sound artist explores ways of making it possible to experience human energy fields or to allow the resonance produced by a self-playing stone to sound.

What drives Simon, and what he seeks to transform and convey aesthetically, is a “mingling” of acoustic curiosity and its technical implementation in combination with the surrounding context – in nature, in society. The sound material is crucial as is the space in which art and sound take place – whether a former Jewish fabric store in Langstrasse, Zürich, a volcanic landscape in Iceland, or Peiden, a tiny hamlet in the Grisons. Simon considers improvised music to be an unstable condition in which you can find yourself. It represents uncertainty, tension.

Once you accept that nothing is stable, you can react by means of creativity. In a situation of uncertainty, energy is the solution. Simon amplifies his material, develops flaws and “instability” and invites the audience, those attending and those performing to participate in an experience of a natural phenomenon, in an encounter with social developments. The performance by the Kofferorchestra (‘Suitcase Orchestra’) and 30 refugees in Zug, in August 2017, shows how art requires creativity in the moment, in the present. The acceptance of uncertainty by listening, watching and intervening involves artists, those present, those participating and the public.
It also raises awareness. With his interactions and interventions Simon Berz creates new forms that reveal creative options. While refugees indicate instability in society, the mountain hamlet of Peiden indicates the instability of nature. Peiden is slipping. The geological situation has been causing the church as well as the entire village to gradually slide towards the valley. This “stable cant” is an inspiring thought for Simon Berz and Dutch electronic artist toktek. This situation of instability, cracks and of the unknown led them to the idea of consolidating the entire house and village acoustically. The slippery condition became the manifesto of the Peiden album.

When Simon Berz rode his bike 2008 across a field of stone in the French Alps, he was immediately taken by the sounds the stones produced. He took some of them home to create a lithophon, which he then amplified and manipulated with electronic effects. As he scratches and strokes them or uses different sticks and materials to hit them percussively, he creates a dense and unique performance. For installation purposes, he lets water drop from infusion bags in various speeds, creating a complex and meditative sound piece.

Since 2009 Simon Berz has had a special relationship to New Orleans, the city where his Liquid Land project came into being, a continuation of the 10x10=>11 sound art project. He began to build instruments out of Objets Trouvés and to improvise on them together with musicians from New Orleans’ experimental jazz scene. The project led to a documentary and the Liquid Land CD, which were presented on a tour through the USA and in Switzerland. Currently Liquid Land is being continued with a new record in collaboration with Rob Cambre and Moose Jackson, who improvises lyrical moments with spoken words stemming from current situations.

in 2000 Simon Berz founded the BADABUM Atelier music school in Zug, running it with great enthusiasm and minimal resources. His public drum performances with his drum students, the Schepperkids, have been causing a sensation. The Schepperkids are from Switzerland, from abroad, they are disabled children, teenagers and refugees. A school, a network, the contribution of world stars: every year this leads to MONSTER GROOVE, a “social medley”, a concert with over 60 drummers, dancers, and famous guest musicians. Thanks to the annual organization, management and performance of this happening in the Chollerhalle, Zug, the participants, who come from all generations, cultures and lifestyles, including children and young people from varying walks of life, can celebrate the binding power of making music... through encounters, dances and food.

Drummer and electronic artist Simon Berz has toured through Japan, China, Russia, the US, Cuba, Iceland, Turkey and Europe, both as a solo artist and together with other musicians and groups. He works together with Toshinori Kondo, Kidd Jordan, Skúli Sverrisson, Kirk Joseph, Rob Mazurek, Mars Williams, James Singelton, Je? Albert, Dan Oestreicher, Aurora Nealand, Paul Lowens, Rob Cambre, Helen Gillet, James Singelton, Xu Fengxia, Willem Schulz, Niki Glaspie, Franz Hautzinger, Isabelle Duthoit, Dave Rempis, Jojo Mayer and many other artists. He makes regular guest appearances with the Zürich group Superterz. In 2017 Superterz performed every night for a whole month with Baby Sommer, Toshinori Kondo, Al Comet (The Young Gods), Burnt Friedman, Niels Petter Molvear, and Mauro Pawlowski (DEUS).

Simon Berz composes soundscapes and music for the theatre and films. Under his direction the IOIC Improvisationsorchester took part in the debut performances of the live scoring of three silent films at the Filmpodium Zürich and at the spin-o? Filmfestival Locarno. Further performances followed in Beijing, Shanghai, and at ART Basel Hong Kong.