1995 release ** "Years ago there was a concert with the Zug percussionist Beat Föllmi in a factory in Cham that was supposed to be demolished, which was recorded on a CD with the title “unorthodox approach”. It was all about free improvisation and an extensive and unusual set of sound instruments: the most powerful piece was a gong over two meters in diameter. Today – 1996 – the same percussionist titles his latest recording “orthodox approach”. The change from “unorthodox” to “orthodox” is not just a play on words: the percussionist’s instruments and his style of music have changed. The ancient Greek syllable “ortho” can be translated as “straight”, “upright”. Beat Föllmi has his own term for this. He describes his pieces with the Ghanaian farewell greeting “Sankofa”, which means “just about to get going”, “in the middle of it”, “get it on!” means. He intuitively linked a concept from Western tradition with one from African life. The fact that the two terms fit together is significant for Beat Föllmi's music. “Sankofa” – the European’s fascination with Africa is unmistakable: in the timbres of the instruments and in the rhythm, the two most important foundations for a percussionist. But Beat Föllmi doesn't want to copy Africa or transplant it to Europe as an exotic species. He seems to be more interested in what happens when he experiments with African material within European concepts. Föllmi relates the sound material to European composition methods, which are still characterized by the longing for targeted development in contemporary music. What is also more European is the desire to master an extensive set of percussion instruments, which in Africa would be played by an entire orchestra, as a soloist and to push the instruments to the limit in terms of their character and timbre: by playing two differently tuned balaphones at the same time, Föllmi forces the “ghosts” of the instruments to never be heard before."