The Greenlandic word Takkuuk means »attention«, and it is the slightly ironic title of one of the more chaotic projects at this year’s CPH:DOX. The film is a collaboration between visual artist Zak Norman, film director Charlie Miller, and the Belfast-based electronic duo BICEP, and it also features seven musicians from Kalaallit Nunaat and Sápmi. In other words, a multitude of voices and agendas are at play, and the project clearly bears the marks of that.
The process leading up to the film sounds more interesting than the work itself. Norman and Miller travelled around the Arctic, seeking out musicians and researchers while filming glaciers and ice. The film’s seven young musicians then entered the studio with BICEP to create a shared soundtrack: a kind of club-oriented remix of seven very different practices, ranging from drill and heavy metal to joik, throat singing and drum dance. It might have been fascinating to follow those encounters, but instead the film takes us in another direction.
The editing shifts between a documentary strand of interviews and a surreal music-video aesthetic, where specially built cameras pan across the surface of the ice, bathing it in coloured filters referencing the northern lights and club lighting. In the interview track, the participants are allowed to steer the conversation themselves, which sends it in many directions. We touch on the spiritual undertones of traditional musical expressions, and here one would have liked the film to linger longer. One intriguing sequence explains how drum dance relates to the performer’s heartbeat, and how that rhythm is almost the same as the pulse of drill. More of that, please.
In a subsequent talk, the filmmakers explained that the work was originally produced as an audiovisual installation for five screens. That makes sense and might have worked better. Considered as a documentary film, Takkuuk is fragmentary, chaotic and directionless, which is a shame, because the young musicians seem to have much more to offer.
»Takkuuk«, Zak Norman & Charlie Miller (UK), 2025 (67 min). Screenings: 12, 17 and 19 March
»What is music to me? Here’s a quote from Nietzsche: ‘The people dancing all seemed crazy to the people who couldn’t hear the music.’«
Salim Washington is a saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, academic, and activist from Detroit who has been highly active on the American jazz scene since the 1970s, and also in South Africa, where he became a central figure. The spirit of John Coltrane hovers over his music, which carries both spiritual and social dimensions.
»Music for us is the perfect language that we love to speak. A language where it is the individual's feelings and imagination that determine what is right and wrong. Everyone can speak the language. You don't have to be able to write or understand, but just listen. Some music requires that you listen carefully and maybe hear it several times. A bit like when you talk to someone from Norway or Sweden, you also have to listen a little extra.«
DØGNKIOSK is a Danish punk rock band with roots in Silkeborg. The band consists of bassist and singer Anders Ejner, who has been active on the Danish underground scene for several decades. Musically, DØGNKIOSK moves in a field between classic Danish punk and alternative rock. In the spring of 2026, the band will release their second album, Tæt på kanten.
It is difficult to comprehend that Andreas Engström is no longer with us. Just a couple of months ago, he wrote – as he had done so many times before – with an ambitious proposal: he wanted to review a box set of twenty releases by Dror Feiler. In the same message, he mentioned plans to come to Aarhus for the recently concluded Spor Festival.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re deep underground – indeed, all the way to France. This EP is the latest conceptual release from French electronic producer Romain Martin, who works under the name RÖM in the borderland between ambient and techno. Whispering Dub unfolds across five tracks, drawing heavily on dub while telling a story about an escape from a fictional hotel. Escomel’s background in African percussion studies and his fondness for analog gear surface in the mysterious sonic textures and the stark contrast between arranged percussion and dubbed-out echoes, underscoring the concept’s tension between mysticism and reality.
»Oilbird« opens in dystopian ambient before sliding into the rhythmic »Eastern Temple«, which constantly shifts between filtered synths, frantic percussion, and sudden breakbeats. Things cohere more fully on the title track, which blends minimal techno into the mix and stands out by maintaining a steady pulse, while echo-laden drums cast an unsettling atmosphere within the dance framework. On the closing »Hotel Amnesia«, the narrator awakens again in a collage of the record’s electronic tendencies, questioning their own existence in the album’s only use of vocals.
Whispering Dub isn’t wildly groundbreaking or bizarre enough to push the senses into extreme reactions. But as a well-produced and effective piece of electronic music, it invites the listener into a compelling game of whispers.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
The stage was set for a special experience on Wednesday evening at KU.BE on Frederiksberg. In the borderland between tradition and joyful madness stood birthday celebrant Kasper Tranberg, blowing his trumpet. What emerged was an insistent blend of jazz and avant-garde, laced with understated humor and delivered by a virtuoso with a calm, unmistakably Danish presence. With a wry sense of ease, he made even the most complex passages surprisingly accessible.
Tranberg presented excerpts from 12 Melodic Illusions for Solo Improviser and Melodic Illusions for Sextet with both devotion and a glint in his eye. He demonstrated how the trumpet can stand alone while still conveying abstract emotional states. Sharp trills dissolved into growling undertones, merging with the resonance of the room. At times, he employed backing tracks, creating duets with himself.
The evening’s main attraction was the trio Mesmer – Emil Jensen, Victor Dybbroe, and Anders Filipsen – who performed works from their new piece Terrain Vague II, developed through several residencies in Northern Jutland. The three compositions moved within a field of electroacoustics, contemporary music, and analogue improvisation, carrying a distinctly cinematic and nature-infused sensibility. The sonic plunges into the Limfjord were particularly striking: Dybbroe’s metal percussion and Filipsen’s lapping synth textures carved out a dark, magnetic space. In the piece inspired by Aalborg Harbour, Jensen’s trumpet cut through with long, mist-laden tones, like signals drifting in from distant ships. The result was both enchanting and, at times, deeply inspiring. It was a concert that, for now, refuses to loosen its grip on me.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
