Dimitri Howald – guitar & composition
Michael Gilsenan – tenor sax
Leoni Altherr – vocals
Tom Millar – piano
James Krüttli – double bass
Tobias Schmid – drums
Swiss composer and guitarist Dimitri Howald has, with his band ILJA, created a six-headed mythical beast, a fantastic, romantic creature whose limbs reach out in all imaginable harmonic directions. Yes, this thing sprints at 180 miles per hour, barefoot, straight as an arrow, light and free. Its voice a mixture of horn and guitar, its claws drum, tap, brush, until the song fades out, and night closes in over the tundra. Howald sends his six-headed, twelve-handed being, sometimes veering off course, sometimes singing as one, out into the wilderness – a godforsaken place whose bland emptiness is waiting to be filled with delicate poetry, playful rhythms and the harmonies of modern jazz.