Koch-Schutz-Studer

Koch-Schutz-Studer with Shelley Hirsch: Walking and Stumbling Through Your Sleep

by Glenn Astarita
June 4, 2013

The Swiss improvising trio has made its distinctive footprint for Switzerland-based Intakt Records, also featuring projects based on collaborations with notable musicians, spanning various genres. Here, fabled New York City improvising vocalist Shelley Hirsch imparts her flippant and wily vocal clarity, prowess and passion. Vastly experimental and skirting the perimeters of avant rock and tiny elements of chamber, the ensemble's unique instrumentation also lends well to the improvisational component, spiced with wild and sometimes zany electronics permutations. Essentially, abstract sounds ...

Koch/Schutz/Studer: Tales From 30 Unintentional Nights

by Nic Jones
March 3, 2008

Hans Koch (reeds, electronics), Martin Schuetz (electric 5-string cello, electronics) and Fredy Studer (drums, percussion) come out of an area of the music in which the parameters are defined as much by a noise-rock tradition as they are by anything closer to improvised music as such. There is of course nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but when the music seems pervaded by a kind of reductive nihilism it does make listening something of a chore.

It starts promisingly enough. The ...

Koch/Sch: Life Tied

by Germein Linares
April 25, 2005

At first glance, the sound experiments presented here come across as an uneven, lumpy mixture of electronics, drum and bass, and sporadic reed work. It takes several sessions and a certain willingness to allow the whole of the seemingly disjointed Life Tied to be convincing. Since the music is anything but traditional in concept and execution, swing and 4/4 time are nowhere to be found, the album requires an open mind for full appreciation. As with this year's London Duos ...

Koch - Schutz - Studer plus DJ M. Singe & DJ I-Sound: Roots and Wires

by Glenn Astarita
July 1, 2000

Their calling card should read something like; “avant-garde - - will travel” which is a spin on the old American Western TV series, “Palladin”. The trio of Hans Koch (woodwinds, EFX), Martin Schutz (cello, EFX) and Fredy Studer (drums) recorded Cuban musicians and overlaid arrangements on the 1999 release, Fidel and turned in something similar after venturing to Egypt with the 1997 recording Heavy Cairo Traffic. Yet here, on Roots and Wires these seasoned warriors pursue some sort of hallucinatory, ...