in brief
16.06.2022

Moog til folket

Klang Festival: »The Minimoog Project« – Sebastian Berweck
© Alexander Banck-Petersen
© Alexander Banck-Petersen

En bedaget døs af musikhistorisk revisionisme meldte sig i Musikhusets forgyldte lokale: Nu skulle Minimoogen skrives ind i den klassiske kanon med koncerten The Minimoog Project. »Synthesizernes Stradivarius«, som hovedpersonen Sebastian Berweck varedeklarerede. 

Der gik Darmstadt i den: Skulle vi nu til alt det med de »nie erhörte Klänge« én gang til? Ikke rigtig. Futurisme var ikke en del af startopstillingen. I stedet havde man sat retromani på banen i form af Dorit Chryslers theremin-tryllerier i værket Fracture 22. Magien udeblev i det forudsigelige plot, hvor instrumenterne startede i hver sit frekvensland men til sidst fandt sammen i fælles filtrering.

Heldigvis blev der skiftet ind med værker, der rent faktisk havde noget på hjerte. Juan David Perez’ støjende tandrodsbehandling i Abstraco Model – Ducil Artefacto gjorde nas. Misha Cvijovics filmiske granatchok Iktuarspok var – trods den slidte symbolisme – en smagfuld drone, som smidigt mixede Moogens bløde og hakkende kurver. 

Befriende var det, da Kirstine Lindemann stødte til og førte synth-æstetikken væk fra sig selv og ind i kroppen. Værket TRIO fascinerede i sin telepati mellem de to performere, der – med lukkede øjne – virkede introspektive og forbundne på samme tid. Hænderne bevægede sig op og ned som scannere i penduler med den opkoblede vejrtrækning. Hvad viste Lindemanns røntgenbillede? En nysgerrig forløsning af Minimoogen som en del af et kropsligt ritual.

© 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.«

»What music is to me? Where have the great feelings gone?«.

Gellért Szabó is a composer, conductor and performer based in Leipzig, Germany. His work combines contemporary composition with influences from free improvisation, noise and the expressive richness of the late nineteenth century. He is the founder and artistic director of the 23-piece Ideal Orchestra, an ensemble dedicated to large-scale experimental music of sweeping emotional intensity. Alongside this work, Szabó performs internationally with his solo project Radical Radio Show, exploring symphonic textures and immersive sound worlds through a single electric guitar and live electronics. His music is driven by a search for intensity, vulnerability and uncompromising emotional expression.

© Christoffer Askman
© Christoffer Askman

From the Culture Yard in Helsingør, ships glide past Kronborg Castle through the narrow waters of the Øresund – a reminder of the trade routes that, for centuries, have carried goods, people and power between the Nordic region and the wider world. It is an apt point of departure for the Passage Festival, and for Marie Dahl's vocal work Silk. Sugar. Sand, which explores the intertwined histories of three materials.

Silk. Sugar. Sand is a vocal performance in three acts tracing the historical journeys of these materials through colonialism, the global economy and geopolitics. Five singers from Ars Nova Copenhagen perform within a minimalist scenography consisting almost entirely of coloured light and three sets of costumes that transform throughout the performance: first silk dresses, then crinoline-like structures evoking sugar loaves, and finally grey stone-like forms suggesting accumulations of sand.

The work's central device is to translate the physical properties of these materials into vocal expression. At one moment, the elasticity of silk becomes soft, flowing polyphony; at the next, a cocoon-like electronic crackle. Sugar's crystalline structure is rendered as sharp vocal attacks – brief, whip-like cracks – as well as sweet, intimate whispers, while sand creaks and rustles, resonating with a libretto about economy and domination, violence and desire.

The performance has no conventional narrative, and the five singers portray no distinct characters, moving somewhat stiffly across the stage, as performers often do when their primary focus is on the voice. Comparisons with Hotel Pro Forma's Flammenwerfer are difficult to avoid. There, the production's rigorous aesthetic was counterbalanced by C.F. Hill's wildly expressive visual universe and Blixa Bargeld's deeply vulnerable stage presence. Those qualities are missing from Marie Dahl's carefully controlled staging, which could have benefited from more of the sensitivity and chaos that also form part of Kirsten Dehlholm's artistic legacy.

© PR

»To us, music is a primal, elemental force that allows us to shed our inhibitions.«

Leizure is a Copenhagen-based quintet operating at the intersection of post-punk, no wave, and experimental rock. The band’s sound is characterized by atonal vocals, piercing saxophone, hypnotic guitar riffs, and a rhythmic foundation that oscillates between tight precision and raw intensity. 

The band’s upcoming album, The Guillotine, explores themes such as societal decay, upheaval, and the challenging of established structures – all conveyed through a direct and high-energy musical style.