Heimatklänge

Yesterday I had the chance to watch "Heimatklaenge" at the Berlin Film Festival. I was expecting that a documentary about folk music and Yodeling in Switzerland would be rather boring, but what I saw was simply amazing: The movie is a portrait of three musicians who take the traditional swiss folk style and combine it with experimental music. This sometimes sounds like Zappa, at times like Zen-Meditation or sometimes reminds of Klezmer music. We here some of the tunes in full length and I really enjoyed listening to all of them.

The documentary doesn't present a narrator, who tells us what to think about the artists or their music. The portrayed persons speak for themselves (in Switzerduetsch) and their stories and their story telling is so compelling that you forget that it actually is a documentary.

This definitely is one of the best music films I've ever seen.

I just saw this movie as part of the Athens International Film Festival, at which I am on the jury for musical films. I was wonderfully impressed, both by the stunning, spiritual music and the celestial scenery against which it is set.

I was particularly impressed by the extra-terrestrial singing of Christian Zehnder, whose vocalise incorporates yodeling, overtone singing and something not unlike scat singing as performed by energy beings or djinn.

I also had no idea that Swiss men wore crystal pendant earrings. Live and learn.

I came home right after the screening and bought the soundtrack cd at amazon.de.

I never do things like that.

yours, Blaine Reininger Athens, Greece