Veroníque Vaka’s ongoing project to pin some of earth’s most momentous geological processes down in notated music is proving beguiling. The latest fruit was premiered on Saturday at Nordatlantens Brygge. Eyland (»Island«) was inspired by the formation of the island of Surtsey, which appeared 33km of Iceland’s coast on 14 November 1963 following a volcanic eruption.
Much of the Canadian-Icelandic composer’s work charts decline; its musical movement tracing harvested data around ecological destruction and decay. Eyland is about creation, and Vaka seemed to revel in the wonder and grandeur of it. The 15-strong Athelas Sinfonietta sounded with the sweep of a symphony orchestra under Bjarni Frímann and Jónas Ásgeir Ásgeirsson’s solo accordion like the emergent island itself, edging up from the spray with magnificent, slow force.
Some of the other five pieces in this concert focusing on music of the North Atlantic could feel like a ritualistic preparation for Vaka’s – a testament to the composers’ focus more than their lack of weight. Around the clear long lines of Eli Tausen a Láva’s Álvan are distinctive North Atlantic sparkle and harmonic depth; Daníel Bjarnason’s Skelja is a miniature sonic romance between harp and percussion and Friðrik Margrétar-Guðmundsson's Fikta a smudged chorale, played with shamanistic intensity by Ásgeirsson. Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Entropic Arrows focused the mind with its threading of long string tendrils from out of frantic wind and percussion action.
The other premiere was Aya Yoshida’s Song of the Voice – a non-vocal echo of the Faroese song tradition for cello and ensemble in which, at one point, you hear a chain-dance ratcheting round. The work is not without some imagination and effectiveness, but it was made to sound incoherent and unfocused by what surrounded it here.
»To me, music is humanity, community, a smile, a conversation, a moment, an eternity«
Abel Alazo Rangel is the founder, curator, and producer of the Nova Concerts Series in Copenhagen. Nova began as a festival in 2003 and was relaunched as a concert series in 2023. Through Nova, he presents musicians and creates musical encounters that bridge the Cuban, Latin American, Danish, and international music scenes.
There is something almost dogmatic about Mike Sheridan’s latest album, Touch. Everything leads back to the Cristal Baschet – a peculiar instrument from the 1950s in which sound is produced by running wet fingers over glass rods, setting metal resonators into vibration. No strings, no keys, just glass, water, skin and friction, slowly making the metal sing.
The Cristal Baschet is not merely an instrument on Touch. It is the album cover, the subject of the press photos, and almost the very argument for the album’s existence.
It recalls the material fetishism found in the American duo Matmos, whose music is often built around a single material or sound source: metal on Metallic Life Review (2025), plastic on Plastic Anniversary (2019), a washing machine on Ultimate Care II (2016). What is interesting about such constraints is that they ought to force the music somewhere it otherwise might not be able to go.
While listening to Touch, a question therefore begins to press itself forward: Which of these sounds could not have existed without a Cristal Baschet?
There are glassy tones that hang in the air and slowly change texture. Thin, cutting vibrations. Metallic surfaces that flutter, ripple, open and close. A constant sense of droning resonance; of something vibrating just on the other side of the audible.
Sheridan’s layering is meticulous. There is a precision to the mix, an almost surgical sense of the distance between the different textures. The best moments occur when the surface is disturbed: something that scratches at or short-circuits the otherwise tightly controlled resonance. On »BOW / GROUND«, for instance, deep bass pulses suddenly enter, creating a different physical quality – crackling, heavy, like something hitting the floor.
But Touch is first and foremost a well-produced ambient album. It moves through different degrees of the same state, changing nuance without ever truly changing its skin. That is not necessarily a weakness. There is something consistent, almost meditative, in Sheridan’s insistence. But the longer one remains in the same sonic state, the more one begins to miss what ought to be the Cristal Baschet’s particular possibility.
This is where the disappointment lies: in the gap between the instrument’s strangeness and the music’s conventional appearance. The sounds have been assimilated into a familiar ambient vocabulary, where the extraordinary instrument ends up producing something surprisingly familiar. You can hear that something unusual is happening at the source of the sound. But you cannot necessarily hear why it had to be this particular instrument. Had one not been told that a rare, almost otherworldly acoustic sculpture was standing in the room, one would hardly have guessed it.
»Music is my life. It has accompanied me all the way and given me experiences, friendships and opportunities that I could never have imagined.«
Pablo Fernández is a Spanish musician and the new Head of Classical Music at the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg. For many years, he was principal tuba player with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and has taught at higher music education institutions in Spain and Denmark. He is also active as a conductor, soloist, guest lecturer and jury member at international competitions. Fernández has extensive experience in the management and development of music projects, festivals and international collaborations. He has lived in Aarhus since 2014 and has been affiliated with the Royal Academy of Music since 2021.
»Music is, to us, a kind of closed club of nepotism, networking and Copenhagen cowboy energy. But in reality, it’s got nothing to do with expensive guitars or technical skill. For us, music is something you can feel in your chest, or something that gives you goosebumps. The best concerts are when someone screams so earnestly that the rest of us don’t have to. The best music expresses emotions in a way that would get you picked up by an ambulance if you did it out on the street. For us, music should fuck with the people who have it too comfortable, and give those who have it fucked a feeling that they’re not alone. Boom. And what the fuck is a chord and a key anyway? Kisses from Nightmaries.«
Nightmaries blend saws, guitars and voices into a dark-country, no-wave, cowboy-doom nightmare. They create the kind of soundtrack that feels like a fever dream you somehow don’t want to wake up from. As the world gets stranger and darker, Nightmaries lean into the madness, serving up slow-burning songs that creep under your skin like a poison that takes its sweet time. Put on your favourite steel-toe boots, dip your smoky eyes in an ashtray, and prepare yourself for sloppy doom with punk energy.
»To me, music is love. I love how music allows you to skip the small talk and connect directly with people’s innermost selves. It is an extraordinary and moving way to meet one another.«
Fenja wrote her first song at the age of twelve – about a polar bear dying due to climate change – and themes of existentialism, nature, and her own sensitive nature came to define the lyrics and sound she has since developed. She released her debut album, Flugtdyr, in 2021, and in February 2026, she released the album Menneskedyr.
