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'Heartbeat Drumming' from Manuel Pasquinelli

Improvisation is often inspired by the feelings and emotions of the artist at the time of the performance, and that is more than especially true of the debut solo album from Swiss drummer Manuel Pasquinelli: 'Heartbeat Drumming' is all at the pace of his own heart, in real time.


There is something mesmerising and engaging about this album - one track lasting 37 minutes and all recorded in one take.

Swiss drummer Manuel Pasquinelli is widely recognised as the drummer for Sonar and their collaborations with David Torn. Over the past 12 years, he has also gained acclaim as a composer and bandleader with his own group, the AKKU Quintet, and for his work with duo Schrödinger’s Katze.

He says: “Playing the drums in this way is an intense, I’d even say transcendent experience. I take my heart as an unsteady natural metronome, while constantly adapting the pace of my drumming. Connected to my inner beat, I am simultaneously suspended between total freedom and total dependence at the same time, while the conscious and the subconscious ‘me’ work together."

The track is almost an answer to AI - the differences in tempo are heart-driven and intensely human.

Recorded in 37 minutes live in front of an audience at Mazzive Sound Studios in Bellmund, Switzerland, there are no edits or overdubbing, with real energy from the drummer who was connected to a heart-rate belt so that he could hear his own pulse clicking through his headphones.

There feels like a sense of urgency to this music, recorded in the summer of 2020, when the world was a different place: the release of this album in 2025 as we are all analysing the potential positives and negatives of AI seems particularly apt.
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