This Is Pan - Animal Heart (2021)

"It wasn't clear to me from the start that 'Animal Heart' would be a concept album," says saxophonist, composer and band leader Matthias Kohler from Bern (CH). "But it has become one - thanks to the wild boar motif."

Work on the third album of “This Is Pan” began in spring 2019. During an artist residency in southern France, Kohler dealt intensively with the music of the late Middle Ages, because the rules of counterpoint and its lustful bending and breaking apply to the group downright imposing. He was working on a piece with an ascending fourth melody when suddenly a heraldic animal appeared before his eyes, beautifully late medieval and not at all anachronistic: the wild boar. “La Nuit Du Sanglier” should be the name of the piece. And the musical motif that gave it its name appeared again and again in the rest of the composition work, sometimes slower, sometimes faster, sometimes in unison, sometimes in the lead, sometimes in the bass. "It now appears in almost every piece on the album," says Kohler. He already proved that he constructs his compositions carefully in 2017 with the album "Hudson Suite", a musical homage to the river that runs from Upstate New York to New York City.

And so this time it should be about animals. Kohler not only wrote a musical memorial for the wild boar in the Bernese Jura, but also for the lynx he met as a teenager in the Alps. And the pretty horses on the farm nearby, and above all the red kite, the bird of prey that is widespread in Switzerland. Kohler dedicates the piece “Red Kite” to the latter. Here the wild boar motif appears in the electric bass, and the melody of the wind instruments sounds like the flight of a garland of a bird that, when nervous, has to defend its nest. "By 'Animal Heart' I actually mean an ability," says Kohler. “So often we meet each other through a filter of apparent civilization. We hold back, even with positive emotions. An 'Animal Heart' allows us to shape our relationships with dignity, to show our feelings and to really be there for one another. "

With the new addition of guitarist Dave Gisler, jazz listener best known for his brilliant live album by his trio with Chicago trumpeter Jaimie Branch (Intakt, 2020), "This Is Pan", with Lukas Thoeni on trumpet, André Pousaz on bass and Gregor Hilbe on drums have made significant musical developments over the past two years. "I'm very lucky with my four different and very strong fellow musicians," says Kohler. In addition to “This Is Pan”, his heart project, he plays in various formations, from free jazz duos to large ensembles, both as a band leader and as a sideman, always focused on the strong expression on his instrument.

The recording session for the new album was a euphoric experience for “This Is Pan”, also because it had to be postponed due to the lockdown. “We live all over Switzerland. When we finally got to see each other again, we could hardly wait to play together. All the pent-up energy concentrated and discharged in the studio - that was a very intense experience. "

Kohler didn't want to finish working on the music after the studio days. While in all of his previous albums he had primarily focused on reproducing live music as accurately as possible, each piece should now be given the space to really unfold in post-production. In André Pousaz, who is extraordinarily virtuosic not only on the bass, but also on the mixer, he found the ideal partner for this.

He also commissioned Gregor Hilbe to completely rework a piece on the modular synthesizer. “Third Eye” with its motif, borrowed from the late medieval song “L’Homme Armé”, not only got an additional musical but also a metaphysical perspective. And the Norwegian saxophonist and singer Sissel Vera Pettersen provided dozens of vocal tracks for the recapitulation of the piece “I Saw A Lynx Once” - thanks to her network of background voices and rhythms, the record really takes off at the very end. The collaboration with graphic artist and childhood friend Yan Hirschbühl, who illustrated Kohler's seventh production with the current one, proved to be just as fruitful. All the animals honored in the album appear on his cover, and the heart, already clearly audible in the music, can literally be felt.