The Western Pacific archipelago of Tuvalu—deeply exposed to rising seas and the broader pressures of climate change—has become a symbol of cultural and ecological precarity. This reality inspired bassist Pascal Niggenkemper to create the ensemble Tuvalu, a project that reflects on the human relationship with nature using a melange of musical interludes, sound inventions and spoken texts and poems, which are voiced in the native languages of its performers: French, Flemish, Greek, English, Farsi, German, and Occitan.
The performance captured here in November 2024 at Tollhaus Karlsruhe in Karlsruhe, Germany, unfolds inside a ring of sixteen resonant curtains that enclose the audience, eight musicians, and a poet. At the center, nine “sounding islands” evoke the geography of Tuvalu, while the octet—structured as two near‑twin quartets or four interwoven duos—generates a landscape of hissing, shimmering, humming, and eruptive sound. From this shifting aural and conceptual terrain, colors, patterns, melodies, and improvisations emerge like weather forming over an archipelago.
A recording of the project, containing both a studio recording CD and video of the performance here on DVD can be ordered at subran music on Bandcamp.
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