Swiss Electronic Pop Artist Dieter Meier to Perform at Le Poisson Rouge, 5/18

Zürich Meets New York: A Festival of Swiss Ingenuity presents "Dieter Meier: 'Out of Chaos' - U.S. CD Release Concert" on Sunday, May 18, 7:30 pm at Le Poisson Rouge, NYC.

Dieter Meier is the legendary voice behind the Swiss electronic pop pioneers Yello, renowned for the '80s underground hits "Oh Yeah" (featured in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and, most recently, The Simpsons and South Park) and "Race" (Billboard's Hot 100). Singer, musician, conceptual artist, experimental filmmaker, professional poker player, organic farmer and entrepreneur, Meier is now launching his first solo album, featuring his latest musical project, Out of Chaos. For this sole New York appearance, he sings electro-chansons in an "art-act" backed by some of today's best Swiss jazz musicians.

The band includes Dieter Meier (lead vocal), Ephrem Lüchinger (piano), Tobias Preisig (violin), Nicolas Rüttimann (guitar), Jörg Wähner (drums); and electropunk pioneer & producer T.Raumschmiere aka Marco Haas (electronics).

Dieter Meier's Out of Chaos will take place on Sunday, May 18 at 7:30 pm at Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street (between Thompson and Sullivan Streets). The performance is free. RSVPs are required: ZHNY.eventbrite.com.

In summer 2013, Berlin-based producer Nackt (Warren Suicide, Apparat Band et al.), Ben Lauber (Apparat Band et al.), and electro pioneer T.Raumschmiere teamed up with the Out Of Chaos band at Chez Chérie Studios in Neukölln to arrange, rearrange, discuss, discard, research, jam and eventually record a series of sessions which are now an album. The result is a grand record starring Dieter Meier, standing at the bar of his life and musing about the rivers of time.

The songs - which already found their way to the stage of the Montreux Festival and the Volksbühne, Berlin - range from electro-acoustic Yello tracks ("Lazy Night," "Paradise Game," "Jimmy") and tender ex-lovers-Blues from under the sea ("Loveblind," "Annabelle"), to post-punk songs ("Fat Fly," "Buffoon") to an ode to a befriended artist, who wrestles through life as a night porter ("Night porter"). Out Of Chaos sounds like a magical sound-alchemy made of Chanson, Electro, and Dub. And like any other stage Dieter Meier walked onto before, he remains a discoverer sui generis, who invents himself and a new world.

Listen to a music sample: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ym1blr908hodjov/gH7hWppnk1.

Collegium Novum Zurich: Live Music & Silent Films is presented by Zürich Meets New York: A Festival of Swiss Ingenuity, highlighting the contemporary relevance of visionary movements and ideas born in Zurich and their impact on American culture. Building on the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Dada movement and Zurich's role as a 21st-century hub for artistic and scientific innovation, the festival features 25 events at venues across the city, and is presented by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York, the City of Zurich, ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich (UZH).

Born into a banking family in Zurich in 1945, Dieter Meier began his career as a performance artist, poker player and experimental filmmaker. His works have been shown at film festivals and art exhibitions since 1969. Videos and photography are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art New York and the Kunsthaus Zurich, among others. Most recently, his work was the subject of a solo exhibition, Dieter Meier and the Yellow Years, at The Watermill Center (Long Island), July-October 2013. In 2011, the Falckenberg Collection also had a retrospective of his works (1969-2011) at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg.

Dieter Meier, in collaboration with Boris Blank - both considered to be the "Godfathers of Techno" - founded the band YELLO in 1979. Dieter Meier is known for his independent visual worlds of his many music videos, for which he has won international awards. His feature films 82'000 Units, Jetzt und alles and Lightmaker were official entries in numerous film festivals such as Quinzaine des réalisateurs, Cannes, Berlinale, Taormina, Zürich Filmfestival.
He has published literary works in magazines, supplements and newspapers. His book, Hermes Baby - Stories and Essays, published by the Ammann-Verlag, Zurich came out in 2006, followed by a children's book published by Kein & Aber in 2011, the art monograph, Works 1969-2011 and the Yello Years, to accompany the exhibition in the Hamburg Deichtorhallen and the autobiographical volume of photographs Out of Chaos, brought out by Edel Books.
Dieter Meier has run an organic farm in Argentina since 1997, producing beef, sheep and viticulture. His products are sold in Germany, USA, Switzerland and in a shop featuring Argentinean products, "Ojo de Agua," in Zurich.
The father of five children, he says to live "in a type of chaos and anarchy, like a Chinese plate spinner who's always shaking at the sticks to keep everything running parallel".