Baiki traditionally proceeds in the same way :

Philippe writes lyrics to which he puts a tune on the guitar. He then submits his work to the other members of the group who decide to keep those tracks, which tickle their fancy.

This is when the fun starts with arrangements. The first thing is to agree on the general direction of the tune and its mood. Each musician has the freedom to express his inclination. We sometimes work on different moods for one tune until we all reach a common agreement. This is when a track really starts to shape and get its unique “pattern” or “style”.

Once the skeleton is built, we start working on the flesh. This is when we look at the different segments of the song (chorus, verses, …) and we make every attempt to keep it simple and to the point. We work on the dynamics, the intentions and the overall balance.

All that remains is to practise and rehearse over and over again, until the song is totally assimilated. And when we hit production time, we simply cruise through the recording… until we cross the Swiss border *

* Crossing the swiss border is one of Duke’s favourite expressions (Duke, Yves Baudhuin is our sound engineer). When a track has “crossed the border”, it means it has passed the test, it’s fine, we played it sufficiently well and we don’t need to record it again. By extension, crossing the Luxemburg border means that it’s just barely satisfactory, while crossing the Swiss Border is totally perfect.


The lyrics

In general, the lyrics are written by Philippe.
Nevertheless some lyrics have been written by others:
Jurek Franczak : Ballada o pijanym księżycu, Czas to pieniądz, Odchodzącemu, Piosenka bez początku i końca

Marc Donéa : Les 3 pêcheurs
Jadwiga : To jedno
Willy : Chaos Blues


The music

Apart from Les 3 pêcheurs (Marc Donéa) and Sokoły (traditional), the compositions are also by Philippe.

The arrangements

For the first 2 cds, baïki and To są baïki, the arrangements were created by Michel Van Achter and Philippe Bailly.

For Do it yourself, the arrangements were created by all the members of Baiki.
Duke, however, just couldn’t resist the temptation of adding his touch here and there during the production. And we are grateful to him !