| Global.Kryner’s ‘Cosmopolitan Karawanken beat’: an international style that draws on “the music of Oberkrainer”
“Their musical approach is going down really well at jazz festivals and in the folk music scene. They’ve done well to hit upon such an idea.”
So said the Süddeutsche Newspaper in August 2004 just after Global.Kryner had introduced themselves by playing a midnight gig at the Munich Lustspielhaus before a curious audience of a just 100 people.
The months leading up to that performance had been an incredible time for a band made up of five men, one lady, and a total dedication to what Richard Schubert described as ‘Cosmopolitan Karawanken beat’. Out of nowhere, their first CD – released in April 2004 – made it into the top 40 of the Austrian charts.
Various radio stations (such as Bayern 1, Bayern 4 Classic, FM4, Ö3, Ö1, Radio ‘Multikulti’ in Berlin, and the mainstream station Radio One) were all introducing the public to this crazy band from Vienna.
After their appearance at the Tollwood Festival in December 2004, a journalist from TZ Munich was totally amazed, saying, “Their music makes you dizzy and puts a rocket up you. These six full-blooded Austrian musicians are so unbelievably good with their infectious enthusiasm and way-out arrangements that they brought the completely sold-out Tollwood-Amadeon Tent to the boil!”
Global.Kryner’s first year was a white-knuckle ride through the German and Austrian media landscape and consisted of live concerts to full houses: from ORF "Musikantenstadl" to ARTE-Tracks; from ZDF "Messages of Love" with Marianne & Michael to the Jazz Festival in Freiburg; from "Wenn die Musi spielt" to jazz summer in Graz in front of 4,500 visitors; and from Expedition Austria to the Lent Festival in Maribor.
Nobody has managed such a balancing act before. So it was only a matter of time before the renowned magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ mused at how easily the exquisite, up-tempo arrangements with accordion, clarinet, trumpet, guitar and trombone reconciled alpine swing with folk music, jazz and pop.
From an artistic point of view, 2004 ended successfully for the Global.Kryner but 2005 continued in the same vein. After conquering concert halls and both jazz festivals and folk music TV shows, they also won the Austrian contest to perform at one of the biggest pop spectacles in the world today, the Eurovision Song Contest 2005.
With their unconventional, catchy Salsa-Polka-Pop tune ‘Y Asi’ (lyrics by Christof Spörk and music by Edi Köhldorfer), the so-called “Underdog Group” will compete as Austrian representatives at the Eurovision Song Contest this May in Kyiv. The song doesn’t use any drums and is bilingual: lyrics are in Spanish and English.
So it’s with good reason that the ‘Stuttgarter Zeitung’ wrote in November 2004: ”With their cross-border musicality, they have gone far beyond parody. They make music that draws on an abundance of pure sound, forging links between jazz clubs, beer tents and pop music. In their kingdom of joy, musical borders do not exist. Global.Kryner are having a whale of a time, making us all giddy with their music. No-one has made music in such a wild and boisterous manner for a long time. The audience can’t get enough of the alpine discovery of 2004.”
Global.Kryner are:
Sabine Stieger, vocalist
Karl Rossmann, trumpet
Christof Spörk, clarinet
Anton Sauprügl, accordion
Edi Köhldorfer, guitar
Sebastian Fuchsberger, trombon |
