Etienne Nillesen is a Cologne-based percussionist, composer, and sound artist who redefines the snare drum as a self-contained harmonic world, and suggests a rethinking of what a drum can do, while using resonance, duration, and perception as central compositional elements. Nillesen employs the snare drum’s sound as a spatial and sculptural phenomenon. This elusive and disorienting sonic entity fills a room with its diverse tonal and harmonic shapeshifting intricacies, moves through space, and can be perceived differently depending on where and how one listens.
TWEE is Nilessen’s second solo album for the Norwegian experimental label Sofa Music, following en from 2024. It is a 35-minute, minimalist work for two snare drums, recorded at the Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal in Cologne (where en was recorded) in November 2025.
Nillesen plays with great restraint on two drums tuned in close relation to each other, with delicate variations in pressure, touch, and circular motions to explore different areas of the drumhead. He focuses on the minute but quite unpredictable and unstable resonant qualities of these drums, and allows these drums to reinforce or destabilize one another. He produces long tones through sustained contact and circular motion. Subtle shifts in texture and overtone complexity recalibrate the space’s entire resonance, and overtones surface, pulsations emerge, and pitch relationships become audible as tones overlap and interfere.
TWEE offers a highly immersive listening experience. Its hypnotic overtones draw you into its deeply ethereal, continuous sonic field as it gently expands, contracts, and slowly reveals its inner structure. This work demands full surrender from Nillesen, audiences, and listeners alike. It is performed in a commanding, meticulous manner, as if Nillesen is a modern-day sonic shaman, performing a powerful, purifying spiritual ritual, recalibrating our minds and bodies, with effects that linger long after TWEE is over.
Eyal Hareuveni
Etienne Nillesen (extended snare drums)
