The Japanese term ‘IKIGAI’ stands for ‘that which makes life worth living’, bringing together passion, vocation, talent, and social need. Nadia Struiwigh does not take this term affirmatively, but rather deconstructs it phonetically. With the album of the same name, she returns to her own label Distorted Waves – and at the same time to an existential core. Created after the sudden death of her father, the album oscillates between ambient introspection, technoid condensation and jungle-driven forward movement. Struiwigh transforms grief into texture, memory into frequency. At BLAUES RAUSCHEN, ‘IKIGAI’ becomes a live reflection on loss and resonance: machines breathe, sequences tilt, beats break open. Catharsis appears here not as pathos, but as physical energy in the field of tension between the inner world and the sound system.

Nadia Struiwigh, born in Rotterdam in 1989, lives in Berlin and moves between ambient, jungle, electro and hypnotic techno. Releases on CPU, Nous’klaer, Dekmantel and Tresor mark a practice that combines hardware intuition with emotional urgency. As a resident at Tresor in Berlin, she is known for her psychedelically dense sets; her live shows are improvised in dialogue with the space and the audience. In 2024, she founded Distorted Waves for experimental, machine-centred productions. Under the alias IAMbient, she also works in the field of ‘healing sounds’ – connection as an aesthetic leitmotif.