Ralph Heidel's third studio album, "anyways. onto better things," is his most personal and intimate work to date, focusing on hope while not shying away from heaviness. With a wink, he bids farewell to a time when making music became a survival strategy. Heidel, who has established himself as a jazz prodigy, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and sought-after producer (including Apsilon, Casper, Finn Ronsdorf, Bazzazian), demonstrates on this album his unique ability to express emotional depth and complexity through tender, haunting melodies and a deeply sensitive production. His solo work is characterized by the interplay of analog and electronic sounds, featuring intimate piano themes and warm saxophone. The album was created in Heidel's studio at Funkhaus Berlin, surrounded by his instruments —alto and C saxophones, flute, an August Förster piano, and various analog synthesizers This essential space for Heidel fostered an independent creative process over 1.5 years. The process and Funkhaus became a refuge for the composer, allowing him to turn into music what his heart and mind could not articulate. "anyways. onto better things" begins at the end. With "end credits," an apocalyptic opener that sounds like the end of the world, it immediately conveys the central themes of the album: farewell and beginning, love and pain, life and death. Where does this journey lead if everything must be given up right from the start? With "wake up," the second track, the exploration begins: supported by renowned Japanese jazz composer Jun Miyake (who has worked with Pina Bausch and Robert Wilson), whose flugelhorn solo evokes a longing for departure into an uncertain future. The song shifts i dynamics from complex arrangements of woodwinds, drums (played by Simon Popp), and electronic sounds to reduced passages where the flugelhorn stands alone.
