More about: Tuvaband

Tuva Hellum Marschhäuser, who creates under the guise of Tuvaband, is known for creating deeply moving, ethereal and anguished pieces of music: songs that echo tender isolation and create an inexplicably unique mood. It feels rather fitting that the moment I sit down to chat to Tuva over Zoom (myself in Newcastle and Tuva in Berlin), that the rain starts pouring for the both of us. It’s in this setting of melancholy that our conversation begins.

“The only thing I have in mind when I’m creating is that I really like melancholic music: it makes me happy to listen to it. When I try to make a happy song it doesn't make me happy.” Tuva isn’t confined to one genre or one specific sound: instead she chooses to immerse herself in a plethora of inspirations, and ends up creating the music that she so desperately wants to hear, but has not yet found: “I kind of make what I want to hear. If I want to listen to something but it doesn't exist, I'm like 'okay, I have to make it then'.” So it was with this approach that her latest album, Growing Pains & Pleasures was created.

Originally from Norway, Tuva moved to Berlin in order to find more opportunity to grow her music. Tuva explains that trap and pop music were the main Norwegian exports: neither fields into which her music fits. “The term 'Scandinavian music' [refers to] a lot of different sounds that are often grouped together. But I don’t think any of those labels worked for me.” Tuva explains that there was more room to work in Berlin, and more opportunity for underground artists such as herself. It was a place in which she could create her very own type of sound in confidence, and with this came album number three.

Written from a place of freedom, Tuva’s third album, out 21 May, breaks loose of the chains of isolation and sheds the quiet dread of its predecessor I Entered The Void, and instead dwells on a bittersweet hopefulness, one discovered when trying to find a new lease of life. “It's about coming out of isolation and being a little bit overwhelmed by people and the city. It sounds like I wrote it during lockdown, which I didn't, but it could be fitting to people who feel the same.” 

Instrumentally, Tuva opens up as well, with a particular focus on incorporating a lot of pedals into her music, “I started to find guitar very interesting after I got into pedals. I used to find it quite boring, but with pedals it sounds good no matter how shitty I play.” This experimentation elevates Tuva’s music to new heights. To many, pedals become an object of convolution, but to Tuva they become otherworldly, offering a passage into new dimensions of sound. On this sound, Tuva explains that she never tried to create albums that are similar to each other, but no matter how audibly different, they always end up sharing a familiar notion. “This sound does always follow me, even if sometimes I want lots of distortion and reverb, and other times I make something more minimalist, this sound is still there.”

Talk turns to inspirations for Growing Pains & Pleasures, more specifically for the track ‘Annie Blackburn’. A sinister number drenched in a sombre ambience, it's inspired by the cult classic show Twin Peaks. “I wrote that song about when I found myself in maybe the darkest place I’d ever been in. I have always been kind of drawn to something dark. But suddenly I felt like I went to the place I see in movies, and in dark music, I felt like this is the worst place. I didn't like it so much. It reminded me of Twin Peaks. Annie Blackburn is going into a cave and she changes [her mind] and that's what I felt I did."

It wasn’t just Lynch who Tuva found inspiration from. Another name kept cropping up: Kurt Vile. “There’s this one Kurt Vile album I really love, when I write lyrics I have him in my ears and he keeps me from being cheesy: he reminds me not to fall too deeply into cliches.” 

After speaking to Tuva for a while, I can see how deeply she cares about her music, and how much each note has helped her grow out of these “dark places”. “I feel like writing the album and singing it and playing it really took those more miserable feelings out of me and allowed me to put them into something and then that's the way to move on. And now I'm writing a new album and it's not a positive one but it's kind of positive...it’s getting there.”

As the album's themes suggest, Tuva was breaking out of solitude and looking forward to getting to travel again, once restrictions are lifted. “I think the UK and Europe tour will happen in 2022, and until then I decided not to have a livestream concert because I wanna wait till I can play in front of people and get that energy. I can’t really gauge any energy through a screen, and it’s hard to create an energy when you can’t tell if it will be reciprocated.”

 As our chat dwindles down, I'm curious to know what's next for Tuva. “I feel like the only thing I'm doing is focusing on this album, but I have time to really prepare for it," she says. "That's the only thing I'm doing right now.” And with that, the rain stops.

Growing Pains & Pleasures arrives 21 May via Passions Flames.

More about: Tuvaband