Karja Hauptmann Duo - Underwater Consciousness (2025) [Hi-Res]

Karja Hauptmann Duo, the collaboration between celebrated pianists Kirke Karja and Felix Hauptmann, is set to release their debut album, Underwater Consciousness, on the 27th of June 2025, via Boomslang Records and will be available on vinyl and digital download. Blurring the boundaries between free improvisation and instant composition, Underwater Consciousness captures the duo’s exploration of textural depth, rhythmic complexity, and layered time structures on a delicate yet captivating piano dialogue. The music emerges from a shared rhythmic sensibility, drawing listeners into immersive auditory landscapes filled with both exigency and introspection.

The album was recorded on the 4th of January 2024, at the LOFT, Cologne. After an intensive day of rehearsing and discovering new textures and musical ideas, Hauptman and Karja recorded in just an hour the entirety of the music in the album. Each piece unfolds naturally, shaped by their improvisational confabulation and intuitive artistic connection, in which humour and playfulness is present.

“The recording shows depth and urgency—both are core values in our work.” (Felix Hauptmann)

The release concert will bring the album’s labyrinthine sonic world to life in an intimate and dynamic setting.

Kirke Karja, piano
Felix Hauptmann, piano

Tracklist:
1-1 Karja Hauptmann Duo;Felix Hauptmann;Kirke Karja - Uncharted disagreements on points agreed [14:37]
1-2 Karja Hauptmann Duo;Felix Hauptmann;Kirke Karja - Slap me or we'll both drown; then we can hold hands on the surface [6:21]
1-3 Karja Hauptmann Duo;Felix Hauptmann;Kirke Karja - Sand heaves from the lacunae of our abyssal plain [8:32]
1-4 Karja Hauptmann Duo;Felix Hauptmann;Kirke Karja - In the trenches of tenebrosity we rediscover despair in pairs [4:42]
1-5 Karja Hauptmann Duo;Felix Hauptmann;Kirke Karja - Where there were two, is now one; it's just us now [3:40]