Heiner Schmitz - Heimatstücke (2023)

"A saxophone that pensively looks back into the past. Nothing else. At least for the moment. Then a piano that points the way like a lane before the whole band gets in and turns this journey into a collective excursion to the horizon of the imagined beginning. "Blaue Datsche" is the opener to an album that says what it's about with the title "Heimatstücke". The Cologne saxophonist and composer Heiner Schmitz has made a name for himself more recently with more complex albums. On "Heimatstücke" he tries to gain terrain in an ocean of disorientation with very simple means and to find himself and his origins by virtue of memory. The album consists of eleven wonderfully fear-free recollections of his own childhood and youth as well as anticipations of the near future...

"Heimatstücke" is a soundtrack to the film of life. It is a collection of sound narratives from the very personal, bluntly presented life story of Heiner Schmitz, who has gone deep inside himself, thrown off all blinkers, doesn't give a damn about the expectations of the professional world and lets out what has to come out one way or another. But it is precisely for this reason that this soundtrack can be synchronised in a unique way with the experiences and memories of the listeners. "Heimatstücke" is the equally seductive and honest cross sum of all lived and imagined lives."

Heiner Schmitz - Saxophones
Martin Schulte - Guitars
Simon Seidl - Piano
Matthias Nowak - Upright Bass
Ralf Gessler - Drums