Quatre In Toulouse – Swiss Offbeat Entertainment

Bern is not only the capital city of Switzerland and a UNESCO World Heritage Site but is also – even by Swiss standards – a city known for its laid-back lifestyle. And to top it all off, Bern is home to the oldest offbeat entertainment in Switzerland: QUATRE IN TOULOUSE.

It is then no wonder that in 1992, a group of friends from Bern who were just about to finish high school, were attracted to the cool groovy rhythms of Jamaica, Ska, and Reggae. Intuitively, they married this music with their mother tongue „baerndüütsch.“ This local dialect was perfect for conveying the laid-back local lifestyle and the steady offbeat groove. This dynamic collective played a large number of concerts and grew to include 9 passionate offbeat musicians and finally settled on the name QUATRE IN TOULOUSE. Their first album, Ready for Skallenium, recorded in 1999, was their interpretation of offbeat music, integrating jazzy elements and Swiss music. Despite diverse lifepaths and careers of all the musicians, the core of QUATRE IN TOULOUSE kept on living intensively their passion for offbeat music.

Their repertoire grew in volume and color, becoming the representative of Swiss offbeat entertainment, regularly rocking venues big and small, neighborhood parties, weddings, festivals, and sharing the stage with bands like The Skatalites, New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble, The Busters, The Toasters, Hepcat, Eastern Standard Time, Open Season, Kalles Kaviar, and New Model Army. This musical journey included almost all the major clubs in Switzerland, including Grabenhalle SG, Kulturfabrik Kofmehl, KuFa Lyss, Rox Music Bar Spiez, Usine Geneve, Docks Lausanne, Reithalle Bern, Kaserne Basel, Abarth Zürich, Dynamo Zürich, Safari Chur, Sädel Luzern, and led to gigs in Moscow and in the streets of the South of France.

For over three decades, QUATRE IN TOULOUSE have lived their passion for offbeat music intensively, and as Ska, Reggae, or other offbeat music evolves, QiT continues to grow and evolve.

  • Ready for Skallenium (1999)
  • Four Legs (2002)
  • <<3>> (2006)
  • Buchnabu (2016)
  • Itz (2023) – Album release January 19, 2023 Mahogany Hall, Bern

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