Soniq: Archipelago

Founded by German saxophonist Christina Fuchs, German-Indian pianist Jarry Singla and South Indian percussionist Ramesh Shotham, the artist collective SONIQ has been building sound bridges between diverse musical cultures since 2016. Projects such as Eurasian Encounters, South America, Oriental Strings or Africa testify to a lustful interest in the sound of the world's cultures.

But then came the pandemic - and suddenly everything became very small. Travel was no longer possible, the world slipped through a fiber optic cable and behind a screen. In the digital space, you could hear concerts live from all over the world. You felt connected to colleagues who, like you, were stuck in their living rooms - each one a bit like Robinson Crusoe on his island. The image of the archipelago aptly symbolizes the experienced paradox of being separate and being connected.
This is how the idea for SONIQ - ARCHIPELAGO came about.

For this project, SONIQ first invited friends all over the world to send short audio recordings to Cologne. This could be a field recording of nocturnal temple music from Chennai or a short marimba improvisation from New York. It could be a recording of a chacarera in Buenos Aires, gnawa singing from Morocco, Bolivian charango sounds or a drum groove from Mexico City.

The Cologne sound-art duo Merzouga first condensed this material into an approx. 20-minute sound composition. The media artist and visual artist Uli Sigg developed a video work to go with it. In a third phase, SONIQ, Merzouga and Uli Sigg developed sensual, playful compositions and videos for live concerts.

Breisgau, Tamil Nadu, Bavaria, Austria, the Punjab and the Ukraine - the combination of the performers' regions of origin already evokes a sense of the world. All of them have been living on the island of Cologne for a long time, work all over the world and celebrate with SONIQ ARCHIPELAGO a (be)rauschende music, which emerged at the height of the pandemic from the island existence and the shrunken world in the digital space - and now can be experienced very close, very live.