“What there is, is quite a lot, actually almost everything. A big sack that I pull things out of, everything on the table: ... like air, rain, sun, cold, warmth ... eye to eye, not to be overlooked, ear to ear, not to be overheard. Not everything is in the range of the ear, there's a no man's land of perception, black holes, dark fields. But there is so much there ... and I try to comprehend, to grasp, to ustilize and to leave out, simply take what is there.“ Peter Kowald

Loosely based on the quote “What is there” by the well-known double bass player and improviser Peter Kowald (1944-2002), Meinrad Kneer improvises from the moment, without following up a previously defined plan.

The Berlin double bass player and operator of Evil Rabbit Records, Meinrad Kneer, presented his first solo recording with “Vocabularies”.
The title "Vocabularies" refers to Meinrad's understanding that every improviser works a lifetime to develop his or her own specific musical vocabulary that makes the player recognizable and unique in equal measure.

This Berlin based band is an artistic product of double bass player and composer Meinrad Kneer. His compositions are played by a fine group of jazz musicians and improvisers. Most of the repertoire has been written exclusively for this combination of players and some pieces have been adapted and rearranged for them. Kneer's music, influenced by numerous musical styles as jazz, improv, ethnic music, new music and rock, feeds these experienced players to discover new grounds of unexpected interplay and powerful improvisations.

"...dazzling, powerful, animalistic." Martin Laurentius, Jazzthing

The quartet Dalgoo has been founded by Tobias Klein and Meinrad Kneer in 1998 in Amsterdam (NL) and worked continuously till the year of 2005. Now, 20 years after its beginnings, Klein, Ohlmeier and Kneer make a fresh start together with Berlin based drummer Christian Marien. New material has been composed and arranged for the quartet and in november 2018 the quartet reappeared on stage again!

An intimate confrontation on sly musical improvisation levels. Together, they meander between form and abstraction, consensus and dissent, dissonance and echo, but the real power lies in the seemingly endless variations of timbre, which take place in their dialogues. Beautiful poetry!

"Baars, Kneer and Elgart won over the entirely filled church with perhaps the most intensely concentrated concert of these four days. Mightily beautiful. So beautiful even, that we didn’t want to interrupt its reverberating beauty with the performance of the next band, later in that same church."
(Guy Peters in www.enola.be about our performance at the 'Nickelsdorf Konfrontationen Festival 2012')

This is a new trio of pure instinct; super raw, refined and surprising. Their first recording "PUNA" shows the trios abbility to create infinitly new worlds of sound. More to come...

These three musicians first played together as a trio in early June 2012 in Berlin. Instantly they decided to go on working together in this trio setting. The high energy and intensity of their interplay and the spontaneous interweavings of strings and electronics give them a unique voice and place within the genre of free improvised music. The acute sensitivity to timbre and form brought to the music by all three performers produces a music which can explore meticulously the microscopic life inside a texture, or veer between fine nuances and rough collisions of sounds almost instantaneously.

First put together by “Soundance festival” in Berlin, then got settled as its own thing, these three unique musicians investigate the unpredictable combinations of their personal influences and the unspoken agreements that are formed whenever those references overlap. Xenakis, Buddy de Franco, Ali Akbar Khan, Monk, Morton Subotnick... They play with the tension of going with and against those shared vocabulary, and create evolving juxtapositions. All recorded as completely improvised takes without any prior plans, their Trytone Records Release “The Power Of Movement in Plants” breaks the idiomatic conventions of this chamber music setup.

Two creations in one: the chamber music group Phosphoros Ensemble and a project based on the poetry of German writer Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914).

Meinrad Kneer is not new to the exploration of poetry through music. After having dedicated a project to the Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms and another one to the Russian futurist Velimir Khlebnikov, for him, the logical next step was Morgenstern. His oevre has many different facets: next to its famous humouristic wit, there is a philosophical/ serious side and a peculiar sound poetry. Above all, his rhythm and his neologisms are legend.

The program consists of Kneer's original compositions and collective improvisations on poems, recited by Uli Pleßmann.

After several free improv sessions in various duo and trio formations in 2010, the four Berlin based bass players Antonio Borghini, Meinrad Kneer, Miles Perkin and Klaus Kürvers finally met as a quartet in March 2011. Ever since, they created together music on the basis of the sonic possibilities of the purely acoustic played double bass. It is crucial for the quartet, that their music is built on the diverse individualities of the involved players, but at the same time they manage to realize a unique ensemble sound.

"...It was certainly a great pleasure to hear again Julie Sassoon's quartet,
recently recorded impeccably on jazzwerkstatt label at the Berlin radio studios.The group enhances the solo impetus where Julie has investigated her own Jewish family past in pre-war Germany.
The need to be aware of the risks that may constantly befall us seem most poignant.
'Wake Up Call' was a real tear-jerker, making us double take on how the world continues today..."
Oliver Weindling LONDON JAZZ NEWS

The Dutch Guitarist and banjoplayer Paul Pallesen started the band in 1995 to make exiting music inspired by jazz, Dutch /European folkmusic, country and western and instant composing. What came out is a subtile mingling of strong simple melodies and rhythms with more complex harmonies and structures, and there is always an open approch to the arrangements which makes their music unpredictable and free.

Bite the Gnatze has played on several important Dutch festivals like the Jazzfietstour, The Klap op de Vuurpijl and the Trois Jours festival, were they were given some very enthusiastic reviews.