‘We wanted to forget the stage, forget the constant changes, and give the audience the freedom to choose their own perspective.’ Tom Pauwels is a guitarist and artistic director of the Ictus Ensemble.

In this episode, Rob Young meets soprano Nina Guo alongside Tom Pauwels to talk about Liquid Room XII: A Perfect Life, presented at Ultima 2025. Together they discuss the Liquid Room format as a roaming, immersive concert experience — part performance, part mini-festival — where audiences are free to move, listen closely, or drift between sound worlds.

The conversation explores Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives as the core of the evening, and how its dreamlike, speech-based music connects to works by Laurie Anderson, Jennifer Walshe, Jessie Cox, Tom Johnson and others. Guo and Pauwels reflect on voice, listening, collaboration and preparation, and on how disparate pieces are woven into a fluid night of shared attention, sonic streams and poetic parallels.

Produced by Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival

Written and presented by Rob Young

Edited by Solveig Sørbø

Theme music by Kristine Tjøgersen

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