Cleaver/Niggenkemper/Abdou/Kosack

in collaboration with SiM
 

The Ocean Within Us (DE/FR/US): Pascal Niggenkemper – Gerald Cleaver – Sakina Abdou – Liz Kosack

For his new quartet, The Ocean Within Us, German-French double bassist Pascal Niggenkemper has focused on groove and rhythm with free passages within concise structures, and freedom in playing. In his band, he can rely on his long-time partner, the great drummer Gerald Cleaver, the very creative keyboardist Liz Kosack, and the rising star of contemporary jazz, French saxophonist Sakina Abdou.

Described by the New York City Jazz Records as "one of the most adventurous bassists on the scene” and by the Chicago Reader as a “genius for sound exploration,” Franco-German bassist and composer Pascal Niggenkemper creates music with a distinct musical language, blurring the lines between improvised and experimental music, and pure sound. Niggenkemper recently toured with Ben LaMar Gay and worked with artists like Christian Lillinger, Eve Risser, Frank Gratkowski, Els Vandeweyer and Joachim Badenhorst (Baloni, De Singer, 2013).

American drummer and electronic musician Gerald Cleaver is one of the jazz greats. Going by the vast array of prominent musicians he worked with – Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Craig Taborn, Miroslav Vitous, Tomasz Stańko, Ellery Eskelin (De Singer 2013) just to name a few – he is a true innovator feeling at home in avant-garde, swing and everything in between.

Based in Lille, France, reed player Sakina Abdou has been involved in free music since 2007. After her noted release Goodbye Ground for Relative Pitch in 2022, Abdou excelled with a blistering solo set at the Summer Bummer Festival in 2024, and returned to the same festival in 2025 for a new collaboration with Heather Leigh, Ava Mendoza and Farida Amadou, and with 1984, a new trio with Kobe Van Cauwenberghe and turntablist Mariam Rezaei.

Liz Kosack is a US-born, Berlin-based synthesizer player and mask maker. With a unique voice on keyboards in improvised and experimental musics, she has been active internationally with a host of projects and musicians from the current contemporary improv scene such as Anna Webber, Liz Allbee, Steve Heather, Jules Reidy, Jim Black, Devin Gray, Farida Amadou, among many other collaborations and formations with a colorful scope of artists, often employing multidisciplinary craft with visuals and performative elements.

link