On his new album Chott, German-Tunisian producer and composer Taroug confronts his origins. Named after the Chott El Djerid, a vast salt lake in southern Tunisia, the ten-track album revolves around personal history and the search for identity.

Chott is a conceptual work shaped by contrasting atmospheres, from minimalistic melancholy to raw, bass-heavy intensity. It blends traditional instruments with contemporary electronic textures, drawing lines between past and present. Personal materials—such as vocal samples from family members—add layers of intimacy and cultural depth, most notably on the title track, featuring an original Arabic poem spoken by Taroug’s father, and on 1995, a song reflecting on early childhood memories in Tunisia. Beyond these intimate dimensions, he works with sonic imagery that captures the sensory experience of heat and landscape in pieces like Saraab and Sirocco. In Nakhla, recordings of palm trees transformed into repetitive movements evoke scenes of southern Tunisia’s palm plantations, where organic and mechanical sounds converge.

For the artwork, Taroug once again collaborated with architect and designer Marie Brosius, assembling an experimental collage from old personal photographs of Tunisia that visually echoes the album’s themes of heritage and remembrance.