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Mario and I used the pandemic months to work on new ideas – unfortunately, there wasn’t much we could do with live concerts. Now we look forward to a special EP recording and presenting our new material and in 2022.

Since its inaugural launch screening, hosted by the London Film Academy in February 2021, the short documentary film “Trapped by Plastic” (link) has continued to be recognized for its powerful message throughout the year…

Elbcoast Fusion Quartet is a jazz fusion project from the Hamburg area with saxophone, electric piano, bass and drum set between jazz-funk, fusion, pop and R&B. The quartet only plays original compositions and stands out with its exciting voicings, melodies and themes as well as good groove. The formation around the go-getting keyboardist Hans-Hermann Bornscheuer has been performing since summer 2021 in the line-up of bassist Hardy Best and saxophonist Stephan Schwiderski plus me on the drums.

It has been an honour for me to take part with my music in a 10-minute documentary film by Anny Tubbs (First Move Productions) about the work of the internationally award-winning photographer Mandy Barker. Mandy has been raising awareness of the issue of marine plastic debris and ocean pollution over the past decade.

Inspired by first impressions of her images, I began to improvise on my piano and then experimented with fragile melodies in the beloved D harmonic minor scale that would be accompanied by repetitive, rhythmically disintegrating structures and massive (synthetic) sound clusters. In the end, this went well with the story, mood, pictures and film script.

Strange year – almost everything was different than expected. Now with the second lockdown, I definitively want to look ahead and find new perspectives knowing things won’t be like they used to anyways…