SODA Belia Winnewisser

• 1Ancient Monument03:20
• 2Solen03:42
• 3So Real03:20
• 4Peaceful Darkness03:43
• 5The Cry of the Sirens02:48
• 6BT03:49
• 7The Cave with Lost Leaves03:39
• 8SODA04:00
• 9The Queen03:08
• Total Runtime31:29

Info for SODA

With her second album SODA, Belia Winnewisser continues on the path she has been following for quite some time. Few share the Swiss artist’s knack for combining a sensibility to the enthusiastic potential of pop with an interest in niche references of experimental sound design. In recent years, her feel for this fusion brought Winnewisser to the attention of the electronic club music scene. This world and the various genres related to it leave their mark on SODA: sing-along anthems like “So Real” and the densely layered drone of “They Cry of the Sirens” stand alongside the feverish dance track that gives the album its name and rave bombs like “Solen.” A year without club nights allowed Winnewisser to fully embrace her flair for pop and experimentalism, which resulted in more than a mere series of nods to different genres and acts. SODA—both as a resonant title and as a collection of music—is a direct call without hidden meanings or implicit references. It’s simply the path she’s on and the way she’s going.

SODA appears on the Lucerne label Präsens Editionen, which previously released the artist’s debut album Radikale Akzeptanz. The LP follows the single Shesells by L.Zylberberg, with whom Winnewisser worked on a split EP in the past, as well as albums by Samuel Reinhard and Magda Drozd.

Belia Winnewisser produced the music for SODA in the second half of 2020. First sketches composed during a residency at a museum for electronic music instruments in Fribourg were finished in the Norwegian backlands. Aside from these places, Winnewisser’s structured working day at a Swiss soap manufacturer—a place that would develop a significance during the pandemic few would have predicted—left its trace on SODA. Her job demanded an equally structured approach to the creation of the album.

At the beginning of 2021, the artist finished the work on SODA with the help of two other people. Together with the Cologne producer Phillip Jondo, she went back to the tracks to tease out their remaining potential. Some might consider this collaboration an external imposition on creative agency. For Winnewisser, it was a regular part of the process, who was familiar with such an approach from her various band projects. She then developed the design for SODA’s artwork with the Zurich-based graphic designer Kaj Lehmann. It is inspired by the light-hearted and cartoonish aspects of 1990s hardcore rave. The design once more exhibits Winnewisser’s sensibility to the mass appeal of a genre often celebrated for its obstreperous harshness.

Belia Winnewisser

Belia Winnewisser
The music of Zurich-based artist Belia Winnewisser is an enthralling full-body experience. Her sound oscillates between soft noisescapes and brutal salvos, equal parts pop, sound art, and club music, appealing as much to the heart as the head and the gut. Winnewisser started working with sound synthesis and live electronics during her Bachelor degree in Sound Arts. She received her Master of Contemporary Arts Practice from the Bern University of the Arts in 2018.

Winnewisser has been active as a singer, composer, and keyboard player for various band projects, like the dissolved goth unit Evje, indie super group Silver Firs, or pop duo α=f/ m. In the last few years, Winnewisser has been prioritizing her own music production, solo concerts, and DJ gigs. She also composes music for audio books, stage theatre, and leads workshops in songwriting and producing.

Winnewisser’s debut album, Radikale ’Akzpetanz’, was released on the Lucerne label Präsens Editionen in 2018. Her latest Ep ’A Comet Blazing In the Empyrean’ came out on the Cologne-based label SPA Recordings in 2020. She is currently working on her second album, ’SODA’, which will be released on Präsens Editionen this coming summer.

This album contains no booklet.