Track by track: Gans Sauvage - Songs for the Tauben

Written By Marc Harvey

(left to right: Basil Schreyer, David Sallin, Samuel Riedo, Pascal Stoll)

Shortly after I discovered the debut EP from Gans Sauvage, 4-Gans-Menü, which was also the soundtrack to my Easter in 2025, I had the pleasure of interviewing Samuel Riedo for his solo project. I was already a big fan of the soundscapes, as well as the playfulness and wordplay with the languages, across the four songs. In the interview, he also gave a preview of the follow-up EP, Guin Sauvage, which is an enjoyable listen and showcases another side of his project with the driving Gina and the explosive Ketamin before re-finding the familiar Gans Sauvage groove in Korsika.

Earlier this year, I had the chance to preview their debut album, Songs für die Tauben, and it’s an excellent album. I can feel that the songwriting has evolved whilst holding onto a lot of the qualities that make me really enjoy Gans Sauvage. The song, Punk Polizei, instantly became one of my favourite tracks on the album - keep an ear out for the punk band names in German - and I didn’t recognise that Song für die Taube was 17 minutes long, especially as it kept my whole attention for the duration of the song. I have found myself going back to the album ever since and it’s definitely worth checking out.

At this year’s Kombinat Festival, I got to see Gans Sauvage live for the first time with Samuel joined on stage by Basil Schreyer (Basil Elisa, Polarbären, Personne) and Pascal Stoll (Crème Solaire, Scalpel, Jean-Michel). It was great to hear the songs in a live setting as they played tracks from all three releases and to be bombarded by the wave upon wave of reverb and delay during a fun and solid performance by the trio.

In this eight edition of Track by track, Samuel Riedo tells us more about the background to each song on Gans Sauvage’s debut album. Enjoy!

(photo copyrights: Michaela Theus & Roberto Bilic)

About the album

The guitars and bass guitar of the album were recored in my bedroom in the old-town of Fribourg, with a lot of pigeons sunbathing and scavenging on the roofs. When I recorded the first ideas for the album, a pigeon sat right next to our window and I thought it would make a funny album-title to name it “Songs für die Tauben“ because “Tauben” means “pigeons” but also “deaf people“ … which is of course also the name of the third best Queens of the Stone Age album (after Like Clockwork and Rated R, fight me), which was my favourite band for a really long time.

The five songs were written and recorded in two weeks during rainy Christmas holidays, drums were recorded at the drummer’s home in Gals, a poultry-farm in Gals with 17,000 chickens (I like this fun fact) and vocals were recorded at a rehearsal room in Fribourg. The only thing that is not DIY is the mix and master from Grégoire Pasquier (Shuttle) who captured the twangy indie-psych feeling and added a lot of space and personality to the songs.

(Photo copyrights: Patrick Principe)

Nothing wants to be complicated in this album, nothing is hurried and nothing wants to be show-off, all should be nonchalant and easygoing how life can be sometime, like camping holidays on a remote beach in Corsica or a lazy Sunday afternoon on a terrace in the Basse-Ville in Fribourg. 

I’m grateful to have great friends around this project : Basil Schreyer on the drums, Pascal Stoll on bass & backing vocals, David Sallin as our sound technician during our live gigs, Manfred Jungo on the saxophone, Sylvain Aebischer who did all the artwork and the merch, Grég who did mix and master and also Patrick Principe, who shot more photos of us during concerts than our mums have photos of us in their photo albums. Thanks to all of you / them to be companions of this project. 

20’000 Zigaretten 

I think with a lot of songs of Gans Sauvage I try to convey a particular feeling or mood of a situation, just like the opener of the album. Once I drank a little Fübi (after-work beer) on a cozy spring evening with my neighbour just at the bar Les Falaises outside our house in the old-town of Fribourg and we we’re talking for quite some time, when he said to me : “I could smoke 20,000 cigarettes and talk the whole night through“. I think this was just a beautiful thing to say. I’m the only non-smoker in the band, but smokers always look so happy and at ease while doing it. I’ll intend to start one day, but until then I’ll just sing about it, this sweet and soothing feeling of having your long awaited “Kippe“ that comes along with alcohol beverages, fresh air and good talks. 


Alle Vögel sind schon blau 

This songs combines two passions of myself: As a kid I really wanted to be an ornithologist, before the live music and bad wordplays caught up to me. It talks about of being a little bit of a “Schräger Vogel“ (English: oddbird/oddball), wanting to be a “star“ but having “a Meise“ (English: titmouse/to be crackers) instead. Usually it’s really difficult to write lyrics which are meant to be serious in other projects, but writing lyrics for this project comes a little bit more natural, a bit more on the un-serious side. 

Punk-Polizei 

In Fribourg we have a saying of “La Police du Rock“, when the “important“ people of the cultural scene of Fribourg show up at a significant concert. In the bureau of the Nouveau Monde it’s also used to describe music pretentious people like to listen to. All in all it’s an hommage to all the people who know better but more important let all the other people know that they know better. I changed it to Punk-Polizei because a lot of people told Pascal and myself that our fun-punk-band Jean-Michel was not real punk, which we found really funny. The Punk Police that wears fleece and drinks Rosé instead of Dosenbier and by the end of the day, Punk-Cops are Bastards too. The song itself nothing in common with punk, but more with a lazy and less excited version of the Beach Boys. 


Alles und Nichts 

Is most of the time the opener of the live-concerts of Gans Sauvage and talks about the feeling of wanting something for all of your life, but also realising that this thing didn’t fulfil the way you thought, because expectations are always different than the reality. But even cold coffee can be great and I’m always a fan of Nieselregen (English: drizzle), even though it is often associated with negative connotations. 

Song für die Taube 

I really like long, repetitive and smoothing songs. For the first time, I could and did stretch all the parts as long as I wanted. Inspiration for this one is clearly Beneath the Sun by Harvey Rushmore & The Octopus and Kopf der Band (Joel’s Version) by International Music. Gentle, dreamy and without any fuss, nothing complicated and long reverby notes. A lot of sounds, licks or basslines were found on the spot, while jamming over the drum-machine. When it felt good it stayed, a song without an intention of ambition, nor of wanting to go anywhere, but to ripple along. The word “plätschern“ in German marks it best I think.

Basil had the great idea of adding two drums at the same time, one panned on the left and the other to the right. The saxophone solo comes also from the great musician and even greater friend Manfred Jungo. When I talked about the idea of having a saxophone solo in the song we talked a little bit about the intention of the songs and the songwriting process, he did it in just one take. Like the guitars, easygoing, unbothered and the 17-minute song ends with an unexcited outro and several bird-noises, which I really liked to hear growing up in the Düdingen country-side. 


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