NICA exchange: TAU 5 | Alessandro Fongaro's Pietre

While the monthly concert series 'NICA live' focuses on the projects and musical preferences of the NICA artists themselves, the 'NICA exchange' programme adds an international focus and presents promising projects from neighbouring European countries with the aim of creating and strengthening a sustainable network of cooperation on and off stage. Tonight, TAU 5, a band spanning a bridge between Cologne, meets Pietre, the project of double bassist and composer Alessandro Fongaro, who lives in the Netherlands.

Alessandro Fongaro founded his quartet Pietre during the second lockdown in 2021. He describes his music as "a kind of personal diary in which I collected everything I experienced during that time: Love, heartbreak, friendships and so on". Stuttering rhythms and sensitive melodies characterise his music, which unites vulnerability with urgency as well as great playful energy with the ability to capture its audience. The band's debut "First time (a)live" was released in autumn 2022. Fongaro is also part of the Sun-Mi Hong Quintet - with this band we were able to experience him last year during Cologne Jazzweek 2022 - and Tijn Wybenga's AM.OK.

Musically, TAU 5, the second band of this evening, oscillates between free jazz and fusion with beat-heavy hip-hop elements - individual parts are reminiscent of elaborately produced soundtracks. In a collective process of composition, improvisation and arrangement, the five musicians from Berlin and Cologne find the vocabulary for their own sound language. The result is a sound that is hard to beat in terms of density: futuristic, virtuosic and bold! After the debut album "Kreise" released in 2020 on Fun in the Church, the band is back in the studio in spring 2023 and the concert visit satisfies curiosity - TAU 5 are already on the road with new music!