In the organizer's words:

The Klang und Raum Ambient Sessions will take place this year in the concert room of the music and culture station 674FM.

The Cologne duo Merzouga will kick things off, followed by Roland Schappert

Merzouga / Eva Pöpplein & Janko Hanushevsky

Merzouga is a dot on the map somewhere in the Sahara. There, electronic musician Eva Pöpplein and electric bassist Janko Hanushevsky experienced the thunderous silence of camel flies and sand trickling down the dunes. Their sound research took them to India, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Morocco, the Ukraine, Iceland, Greenland, South Africa, Namibia and Brazil, where they collected sounds and stories.

As a duo, they produce sound compositions and installations, radio plays and radio features, play and compose music for radio, film and theater. Sound installations at the Humboldt Forum Berlin, the Alte Pinakothek Munich, Museum Schnütgen Cologne and Museum Morsbroich, among others. World premieres at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, HAU Berlin, Volkstheater Munich and many more.

Her radio productions have received numerous international awards and have been broadcast by all ARD stations and in numerous European countries. Releases on GRUENREKORDER, Prospero Classics and several times on international compilations, e.g. WIRE TAPPER.

The two live and work in Cologne.

https://merzougamusic.com/

Roland Schappert

Ambient Liveset L G by Roland Schappert

Roland Schappert pursues border crossings in the form of an "organic digitality" oscillating between melos, sound and rhythm. He develops a concise tonal language that is inherent in all tracks and radiates a pleasant emotional warmth. The musician creates each synthesizer sound individually, always striving for organic-sounding variety. A deep, warm bassline often lays the foundation for an expressive mood, rounded off by pointed atmospheric sounds. Sometimes only complex alternating tone sequences are heard, inviting the listener to dream. The latest developments in AI are incorporated into individual tracks in a targeted and critical manner. Roland Schappert founded the project label r-ecords.com in 2022 with the help of music critic Joachim Ody. The label has been represented by KOMPAKT Digital Distribution since 2025.

The duo rsn | Fabian Neubauer and sound artist Shuoxin Tan will launch on December 4.

rsn | Fabian Neubauer

rsn (bass) and Fabian Neubauer (drums/percussion) create a multi-layered sound field that moves between drone, ambient and free improvisation. In the musical encounter between the two sound explorers, low-frequency, floating bass surfaces merge with organically breathing rhythms, pulsating structures and delicate acoustic impulses.

The music is created in the moment - slowly, tentatively, with plenty of room for development. Layer by layer, textures build up, bump into each other, flow into each other and create an atmosphere that unfolds calmly and excitingly at the same time.

What begins as a minimal impulse grows into a hypnotic maelstrom in which sounds expand, time dissolves and the space itself begins to vibrate. It is an invitation to listen with the whole body - to linger, to sink in and let yourself be carried away by waves of sound.

Fabian Neubauer studied piano and percussion at the Folkwang University of the Arts. Thomas Rosen (rsn) studied media and theater studies at the Ruhr University Bochum.

[Website]

www.rsn-entities.com www.fabianneubauer.com

Shuoxin Tan

Born in Beijing, since 2020 living and working as a composer and sound artist in Cologne. Her research currently focuses on lacanian topology, algorithmic acoustics, and mathematical formalization.

How to apply "purloined" theoretical knowledge into artistic practice is her curiosity. She approaches and works between composition and improvisation, which often happens in specific space, intertwined with the exploration of physical movement and auditory perception.

Her work has been released on labels such as SUPERPANG, Infant Tree and Zoomin' Night, compilations on labels Sub Rosa and reiheM.

https://github.com/mewithoutnara/shuoxintan

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