Artist Information

Biography

The Upper Strata plays a collection of tunes based around song writing team Jonathan and Regula. The pieces range from very old ideas that Jonathan has been playing or reinventing for many years, and new songs written in Switzerland, Colorado, and Arizona. Writing and performing both their originals and numerous classics they guarantee something for everyone.
Because of the nomadic tendency to move every two years, The Upper Strata has performed in Colorado, Arizona, but also in Italy and Switzerland. The first album - that has long since been out of print - has therefore also traveled all over the world.

Jonathan: "The Upper Strata refers to the top layer - as in whatever I am working on now is at the top and the older things are buried beneath." He began The Upper Strata as a side project in Colorado while working with the heavy alternative band Grin Fiends. That band increasingly felt like a volume competition and Jonathan feared the songs were being lost to all the pounding and wailing. So he started to put the more sensitive quiet songs aside and found he had many after a time.

Fun Facts: - A few of the songs have been performed as rock songs with Jonathan's Swiss band Ramblin' Rose. - Jonathan's Blues name is Johnny-2-Snakes.

The Upper Strata performs acoustic sets (Jonathan vocals/guitar and Regula bass/percussion) but also as a band with drummer Austin.

Instrumentation
Jonathan - Vocals, Guitar
Regula - Bass
Austin - Drums

Discography
Manifest (released 11/11/11) - EP
13 Songs of Love and Lust (2002)
From Restless To Ruin (1996)

The current project...

Recently released Manifest - a 5-song EP.

The CD lyrically is comprised of Jonathan's recent experiences in the west - most blatantly Desert Wind, Denver Song, and Manifest Land.  Denver Song, the oldest of the wild west bunch, was written mere months after returning to the States after five years in Switzerland.  A time of radical change and uncertainty, the song proved prophetic as the couple eventually left their dream of living in Denver to try Phoenix for a while.

Sleeping in the Graveyard and Love Song Too Late are much older songs, dragged around for years, recorded, re-recorded, performed in several different versions.  For this distinction of staying on the set list for so many years, it was deemed time to finally release them.