in brief

12.07.2023

Grand Miniature Worlds

Éliane Radigue: »Naldjorlak«

In Naldjorlak French composer Éliane Radigue takes us on a journey of microscopic proportions as a seemingly simple musical situation reminiscent of her earlier work for synthesizers unfolds. Naldjorlak is a work for unaccompanied cello and Radigue’s first composition for acoustic instruments and relies on a verbal communication between composer and performer. Cellist Charles Curtis, hones in on just one note for the duration of the piece, however, this premise which at first can strike the listener as simple is anything but.

What 91 year-old Radigue is asking of her listener is to be present and it might come as no great surprise that she has been a practicing Buddhist since the 1970's. To experience Radigue’s music you need to be able to follow sound to its silence, and that is a mental state. Naldjorlak is an invitation to deep listening. What do you hear when you stop in your tracks and begin truly listening as Charles Curtis drones on? Curtis is right at home in Radigue’s investigation of sound and his playing reminds us that without a great performer a great work of sound art does not exist. Had there been a score we could have mused that the work itself exists for the reader to experience through reading, but given the fact that composer and soloist have worked verbally it is more difficult to imagine this piece without its performer and so it’s difficult to fully know when we are hearing Radigue and when we hear Curtis.

Curtis brings Naldjorlak to life so subtly that it’s easy to think that he is doing nothing. It sounds deceptively simple at first but if you take the time to actually experience the pace of the droning you will notice that not only are the two versions offered on this release vastly different in character and expressivity. They aren’t really drones with its implicit monotony, rather they are microscopic worlds of constantly changing textures of sound, and it is the way Curtis so masterfully mediates Radigue’s ideas that makes these recordings from Los Angeles and Paris so captivating.

playlist

03.10

My name is Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek – would you like to see my playlist?

»Recently, I discovered that when a couple of thousand people clap their thick gloves in minus 30 degrees, it sounds like the softest techno – a freezing space where the cold air turns into a wave of warmth, and we, in a moment of collective devotion, become one with the rhythm, one with the invisible bond that connects us in the warmth of silence. Music is not just sounds, but a vain attempt to capture the infinite, which has always been and always will be.«

Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek has been the editor-in-chief of Seismograf since 2021. He is also a music critic and cultural journalist at Kristeligt Dagblad and Århus Stiftstidende/Avisen Danmark and has over the years written to publications such as Kunsten.nu, Glissando (Poland), Neural (Italy), Raw Vision (UK), Nutida Musik (Sweden), Kunstkritikk (DK/Sweden), Iscene.dk, B.T., and Jazz Special. He is the author (together with Lars Muhl) of the book HVA' SAA! En guidet rutsjebanetur gennem Aarhus – før, nu og i fremtiden (2024) and has also contributed to the anthology on music criticism Man skal høre meget (ed. Thomas Michelsen and Claus Røllum-Larsen, 2024). He is a founder and partner in the Polish-Danish cultural organization Kultur(a), and wherever there is a piano, he will be there, eager to coax a melody from it.

playlist

02.10

My name is Aria Leth Schütze – would you like to see my playlist?

»For me, music is an opportunity for transformation.«

Aria Leth Schütze is based in Copenhagen and is the creative force behind the music projects Alto Aria and Samler På Dig. They are a co-founder of the record label Rhizome and a co-editor of the music magazine Passive/Aggressive. Their practice brings together electronic and acoustic music in an exploration of transformation.

playlist

02.10

My name is Mikkel Krause Frantzen – would you like to see my playlist?

»For me, music is the art form that – if measured in hours and minutes – occupies by far the greatest part of my life. I cannot sing, nor can I play an instrument, but I can listen – as a happy amateur – while cycling, on the dance floor, and, above all, at the office. I almost always work – that is, write – to music.«

Mikkel Krause Frantzen (b. 1983) is an associate professor at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, a literary critic for Politiken, and the author of several books in English and Danish, such as En fremtid uden Fremtid (2018), Klodens Fald (2021), and Slutspil (2024).

playlist

28.09

Mit navn er David Dyrholm – vil du se min playliste?

»Music is what gets my gears turning. It sets both my body and mind in motion – and on a good day, even gets them up to speed. My listening habits are entirely shaped by my mood... and by the musical tastes of my two children, which shift every eight minutes... so the home stereo gets exposed to a bit of everything. In a way, that’s exactly how it should be. Room for everything and everyone.«

David Dyrholm (b. 1990) is a food and music critic for Politiken, focusing on jazz – ranging from the traditional to the modern—and avant-garde music. Alongside this, he has worked for the Modern Jazz Days festival, served on the jury for the DMA Jazz awards, and previously released a number of records with the hip-hop collective DoktorDoktor.

in briefrelease

25.09

An Organ in the Dark Forest of Doubt

Calum Builder: »Although Changed, I Arise the Same«

Thanatosis, 25.09

Kristoffer Møllegaard

Last year, Builder released Poor_in_Spirit, an album in which he explored, on his own, the sonic possibilities of his self-built organ. It was an album shaped by this exploration, but ultimately also by the limitations of the organ itself. On Although Changed, I Arise the Same, the composer finds a way beyond them.

The organ is now joined by three additions: Builder’s own alto saxophone, along with the voices of Zola Mennenöh and Johanna Sulkunen. It makes all the difference, providing the diversity of instrumentation that Builder has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to compose for. At times, the organ’s bass sinks beneath the voices and saxophone like a light haze; at others, it envelops them in a heavy fog. It howls like wind in the trees and roars like a train in the night. Mennenöh and Sulkunen sing, chant and breathe simple, repetitive phrases about spiritual uncertainty and searching, as though lost in the dark forest of doubt.

It is a Spartan form of storytelling, giving the listener enough lyricism and atmosphere to set the mind in motion, but never so much that it becomes overwhelming. This is where Builder’s strength lies: his music clearly grows out of his life and experiences, yet he composes in such a way that the listener is invited to enter the story with their own imagination.

Builder determines the colours, but leaves part of the picture to the listener. It is an album that is far more restrained in its dramaturgy than previous releases. No less beautiful or inspiring for it.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek