Pascal Niggenkemper, Sakina Adbou, Liz Kosack, Gerald Cleaver - The Ocean Within Us (Subran, 2026)

By Stuart Broomer

In recent years, bassist/composer Pascal Niggenkemper’s music has been increasingly preoccupied with issues of global survival, from the project 'le 7ème continent', named for the vast expanse of garbage assembling in the Pacific Ocean, to the recent Tuvalu, an expansive suite dedicated to the coming erasure by the sea of a Pacific island. The interest in the environment is an expanding concern in Niggenkemper’s work, but it has been evident since the early years of his career. His first release as a band leader, with a trio completed by Simon Nabatov and Gerald Cleaver, was entitled Upcoming Hurricane, with each collective improvisation named for an aspect of the wind. Those concerns for the state of the environment aren’t simply tacked on to his work: they’re occasions for purposeful reflection and fuel a creative drive to make his messages genuinely impactful.

The Ocean Within Usis genuinely alive with both creative invention and a sense of urgency. Beyond their instruments – Niggenkemper’s bass,

voice and motors; Sakina Abdou’s tenor saxophone and recorder; Liz Kosack’s keys; and Gerald Cleaver’s drums and electronics – each musician’s voice is wholly engaged, whether it’s as singer, speaker or subject for electronic transformation. Everything from Abdou’s raw-edged tenor to Cleaver’s extensive electronic arsenal contributes to the effect here, to the point that the bubbling electronics and muffled, echoing voices can suggest that we are already immersed.

While several brief tracks contribute to the cumulative effect, it’s the longer, generally looser works – “diatomées”, “mami wata” (a near relative of calypso) and “lungs of the world” (distant hiphop), each around ten minutes, each sometimes layering multiple genres, calling up compound moods and responses – that most strongly evoke a nagging awareness of our complex relationships to multiple cultures, environments, terrains, economies and seas. Thanks, Pascal, for reminding us, and with such palatable music.

Tellingly, one cannot separate the subject from the effect, testimony to Niggenkemper’s art and the multiple contributions of his stellar partners here. Essential listening and subject of reflection.