Last Updated on August 24, 2025
CLIMATE AND VIOLENCE (2025) is Kai Niggemann’s second solo album.
The successor to HEART MURMUR (2019) grew out of composer Kai Niggemann’s work on the soundtrack for the performance „Denkraum der Utopien. Eine Performance der Wissenschaften“, a work confronting climate change and inviting audiences into action. Written between November 2020 and April 2021, much of the music took shape during lockdown in Brandenburg, where Niggemann worked with a stripped-down studio: a Buchla 200e modular system, guitar, laptop, small speakers, an audio interface, and a compact eurorack synth for granular processing.
His method was one of constant transformation—recordings of instruments, radio, and field sounds were layered, filtered, and re-synthesized until their origins dissolved into new textures. Initially composed to accompany three scientists on stage, the music also underscored abstract choreography, such as the movement piece “We move when they move.”
The first presentation, streamed during lockdown, was digital only. But in July 2021, as theaters reopened, the piece expanded into a full performance. At its peak, the audience left the theater to join Fridays For Future in a registered street protest.
Climate and Violence is the lasting sonic trace of this process: a record of experimentation, resistance, and urgency. In its shifting layers, Niggemann captures the precarious moment where climate, politics, and synthesis converge. Now it is your turn to listen!
Get it here: https://componentrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/climate-and-violence
Music for and inspired by the theater performance “Denkraum der Utopien”, directed by Manfred Kerklau & Philip Gregor Grüneberg. Performance by Leandra Praetzel, Lilith Kuhn, Nicole de Vries.
Münster Germany, April/July 2021
Recorded at Ulmenhaus, Bad Saarow, Germany in November 2020 – April2021.
Written and produced by Kai Niggemann.
Mastering by Robert Galbraith. Artworks by Katha Mau.
© 2025 WAF80music/Component Recordings
Released by Component Recordings, Providence, RI, USA
catalog numbers. com-360 & WAF80-22.
