The musical brainchild of New York based Swiss musicians Eliane Amherd and Andra Borlo, Swiss Miss brings together a dazzling variety of Swiss female vocalists performing renditions of traditional Swiss folk songs representing many geographic regions and dialects of Switzerland on a backdrop of the music of the Americas: Jazz, latin, Brazilian, blues, reggae, calypso and soul are all part of the ingredients which make up this musical smorgasbord.
The Swiss Miss project is a beautifully conceived consolidation of these experiences in the New York music scene and their experiences as woman having grown up in Switzerland, successfully bringing together their Swiss lives and New York lives in what must certainly be a remedy for "Heimweh".
As producers, they have drawn upon both the instrumentation and vocal arrangements the best of both worlds, not only sonically but culturally; the 12 Swiss female vocalists whose voices can be heard on the album in addition to their own represent many and varied ethnic groups and age brackets; the New York instrumentalists likewise.
Add to this the juxtaposition of traditional alphorn player Eliana Burki and the 21st century sounds of human beatbox master Nino G., and you have a musical United Nations. The idea is beautiful, but the bottom line is that together these musicians have made a well crafted album of material that will provide listening pleasure for Swiss nationals for whom the folksongs are deliciously familiar as well as fans everywhere of great American music.
Swiss listeners will be curious to hear these modern renditions of folkslieder such as S'isch mer alles eis ding, Ganteral and Guggisbaerger Lied, whereas American listeners will be introduced to this rich musical lore in familiar musical settings.
The vocalists brought together for this purpose are NUBYA, MIA AEGERTER, GIGI MOTO, CORIN CURSCHELLAS, HIRSUTE, JAMIE WONG LI, IRINA SIMONETA, CHRISTIN MAHO, YOLANDA SCHALLBETTER, CONNNIE STADLER, all of whom are photographed in a series of portraits on the album artwork. The New York Swiss Miss rhythm section consists of Jennifer Vincent, Hagar Ben Ari, Abou Diarrassouba, Uri Sharlin and Eliane herself on guitar, percussion and kazoo.
Heimweh means homesickness, but it can also mean longing for some place you miss, not necessarily your homeland. Swiss Miss have recorded an album that will make them feel connected to New York when in Switzerland and will always give a taste of a far off Swiss home when in New York.
Swiss Roots wanted to know how they found each other.
We met here in New York, I was in a bar and someone dragged Andra over "you're Swiss--you've got to meet Eliane—" Then we found out we had a mutual friend also, (Meret, the drummer from Shrine for The Black Madonna)--so the three of us hung out. I told Andra about how I had arranged some Swiss folk songs for the Wilhelm Tell Festival in New Glarus, Wisconsin. She has a lot of initiative and energy — we were hired to do the Festival and it was really a good match because there is always so much organizing to do, booking the gigs ourselves, writing letters, press—everything that needs to be done. It was really a relief not to do it all by myself—that's how we started working together.
Tell me about the music
Basically it came out the way I like it. I like Brazilian music and I like latin music and I guess it's just Eliane-ish—the way I would also write my music. Some people like it and some people not so much—so far we've really had a great response. In Switzerland the audience ranged from senior citizens to teenagers and they all had fun.
Some songs I already knew from growing up--I knew them 'naturally' and kind of thought I could do something with that--I also did a little bit of research and found very beautiful melodies in Swiss traditional music some even from the middle ages. A lot of them, however, were too patriotic or too 'oompa oompa'—Switzerland is not really a country where you find rhythm in traditional music, however we have these awesome instruments like the alphorn or the hackbrett and its really interesting sounding stuff —and we have yodelling in these natural scales, and some of these melodies are so beautiful.
Eliane performs online.
More from Andra Borlo.More on Swiss Miss.
