in brieflive
07.04

PowerPoint Against the Dark

Laurie Anderson with Sexmob: »Republic of Love«
© Ebru Yildiz
© Ebru Yildiz

With her characteristic curiosity, Laurie Anderson opened Sunday’s concert in DR’s concert hall with a political statement and the remark, »Thank you for your attention to this matter.« The theme of the evening was a heavy political climate, to which Anderson – like a professor emerita of the avant-garde – offered a musical framing narrative of music, slideshow, and quotes from thinkers and artists who, each in their own way, nuance an increasingly dark world. A framework in which every piece of music had a clear purpose: to evaporate any residue of convention.

Slide by slide, the audience was guided through curious glimpses of the totalitarian and the conventional. The long list of words deleted from government documents by the Trump administration, for instance, served as an introduction to »Language Is a Virus«, inspired by writer William Burroughs, who also appeared on the screen behind Anderson and the band Sexmob. So did Lou Reed, Anderson’s late husband. Dressed in a glittering jacket that, like a kind of magical Kraftwerk, triggered sounds of drums, foghorns, and cash registers, Anderson shared the couple’s three life lessons while playfully dancing and narrating.

I don’t think I’ve ever attended a concert where the entire production team – both on and off stage – was credited with rolling end titles. Yet it felt like a completely natural conclusion to Anderson’s slightly dry and remarkably hopeful PowerPoint concert. A performance that, as a delightfully deconstructive reminder, united the experimental and the concrete in a hands-on first aid kit against tyranny and oppression.

© PR

»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.

© PR

»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.

© PR
© PR

Danish composer Sofus Forsberg has died at the age of 56. With his distinctive blend of melodic sensibility, electronic processing and rhythmic precision, he created a musical world that moved effortlessly between IDM, pop and the avant-garde.

© Simon Weyhe

»Music for me is my hobby, my job, my outlet, my mood, an endless source of discovering new music and new, old music, some of the best and can be some of the worst. And I love it!« 

Track72 aka Tue Track aka Anders Lundby Brixen. Producer, DJ, rapper and more. Known for his role in the trio Malk De Koijn, which since the mid-1990s has created a personal universe in Danish hip-hop. Has performed in Ponyblod, Xtra Naan, Track Abdullah Rock, Booty Cologne and others.

© PR
© PR

On Wednesday, 5 August 2026, it happened again: a chord in John Cage’s Organ2/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible) changed after two and a half years. Classic FM reports.

The work was written by the American avant-garde composer John Cage in the mid-1980s. The score consists of eight pages of music, and, as the title suggests, the instruction is to play it »as slow as possible.«