In the work of Swiss artist Andrina Bollinger, avant-pop, jazz, poetry, and performance art collapse into a multisensory maze. Initially trained in jazz but unbound by genre, Andrina’s music is rich with nuance – a sonic memoir woven from fragmented narratives, field recordings, and emotional textures.
Inspired by her Engadin roots and artists like Björk and L’Rain, Bollinger’s live shows feel like lucid dreams: moving between instruments, she pushes her band into moments of charged instability. She has performed at renowned venues such as Montreux Jazz Festival or Café de la Danse in Paris. Andrina is now preparing the release of her second LP “Island of Way Back”, due on March 6, 2026.
Questions and Answers
3 FACTS
1: As a child, I refused to speak Rumantsch with my mother (one of Switzerland’s four national languages) something I deeply regret today.
2: I try to look at clouds from both sides now
3: The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do
11 QUESTIONS
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Imaginative worlds that are humorous yet deeply connected to life and existential themes. I’m drawn to works with multiple layers of meaning, pieces where you discover something new each time you experience them. Everyday encounters, conversations, books, or art often become the starting point for the stories inside my songs.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
My earliest memory of music goes back to childhood. My mother comes from the Engadin, a mountain valley in the Swiss Alps, and we had Rumantsch children’s songbooks at home. Before I could properly speak, I insisted on singing through the entire book every evening before going to sleep.
I later wanted to learn guitar, partly because of singing in the scouts and partly because of hearing Nirvana, which ultimately brought me to studying jazz vocals.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
Wildbirds & Peacedrums – Rhythm
Björk – Vespertine
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Nick Drake – Five Leaves Left
Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Berlin was my home, and my Island, for almost a year in 2017/18. That time marked the beginning of what eventually became my new album “Island of Way Back”. It’s where I met my musical mentor, where I was able to heal from a lot of things, and where many discoveries happened at once: I saw so many great shows at Funkhaus, discovered speciality coffee culture, and spent many long, solitary hours writing music.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Zentralwäscherei Zürich. An incredibly lively building that brings together a venue, a restaurant, and the space where my studio is located.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I’d probably move to the mountain region where my mother comes from. I would teach, maybe open my own coffee place, spend a lot of time hiking, and get good at gardening.
7. What was the last record/music you bought or listen?
Clay by Matthew Herbert & Momoko Gill. Soo good!
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Björk and Fiona Apple!!!
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
As a performer: One of my most memorable gigs was early in my solo career in 2019, when I supported French trumpet player Erik Truffaz in Paris at Café de la Danse. It felt huge and almost unreal to play there at that moment in my journey. In general, though, I love very personal, intimate concerts. Sometimes a house concert can hold the most magic.
As a spectator: I saw “Soap & Skin” perform at Theaterspektakel Zürich two years ago. That was wow!
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
It comes in quite early in my creative process. I record ideas immediately and start layering, arranging and producing them, even though the instrumentation itself is often quite analogue. The computer functions like another instrument and has become an essential part of my workflow.
11. Please tell us more about the development of your new album “Island of Way Back”?
“Island of Way Back” tells my way back to music and life after a period of deep exhaustion some years ago. I imagine the album as an inner island: a place I retreated to in order to reorganise, to understand what I wanted to carry forward and what I wished to leave behind.
The album is structured in four acts, each describing part of this journey. It will be released on March 6, 2026 and is probably my most personal work to date. The record was partly co-produced by Mike Lindsay in Margate UK, but was mostly created by myself and my band in my studio space. We will soon be going on the road with my band, featuring Arthur Hnatek on drums and Jules Martinet on bass, which I’m really looking forward to!
