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.