My name is Johannes Sigurdsen – would you like to see my playlist?

»For me music is emotions, life, love and language. Food is like music, we can't avoid it, we strive for it because we need it. Music is art in past, present and future, it will always evolve in time – but at the same time timeless as well. Music stands where words fail.«

Johannes Sigurdsen is among the 13 artists nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize 2023. Sigurdsen is from Nuuk, Greenland. Raised in Ikerasak. Self taught musician, guitarist, singer songwriter and music teacher. His nickname SIGU is also his artist name. SIGU is abbrevation of his last name: Sigurdsen. SIGU published his debut album Ujartaraat Qaamaneq in May 2022. He is recently student in Master of Music in pedagogical developement in RMC, Copenhagen.

playlist

13.06.2023

My name is Allan Gravgaard Madsen – would you like to see my playlist?

»In his music, composer Allan Gravgaard Madsen tries to create a better version of himself.«

Allan Gravgaard Madsen is a Danish composer based in Copenhagen. His most recent works include Träume nicht and Nachtmusik. He tries to create a better version of himself in his music – where his personality tends to be restless, chatty and has an active inner life, his music is controlled, simple and merciless in its expression. He is the recipient of the Carl Nielsen & Anne Marie Carl-Nielsens Hæderspris 2022.

in briefrelease

23.01.2022

Finnish Space Travel

Tomutonttu: »Hoshi«

Vauva, 02.12

Kristoffer Møllegaard

The Finnish multimedia artist Jan Anderzén has, with the album Hoshi, released under the solo moniker Tomutonttu, created a true little star. Not only because »hoshi« literally means »star« in Japanese, but above all due to the music itself. There is something cosmic, yet infinitely minute, about the sonic worlds Anderzén conjures—like a galaxy reflected in a puddle, or a space journey in a rocket carved from a hollow tree trunk. Synths emit busy, warm blips and bloops, while ultra-short vocal and instrumental samples create a recognizable blur. At once artificial and organic – soft, rounded, jagged, crackling.

Anderzén approaches sound with a playfulness I simply adore. His music is strange in an incredibly comforting way. It places me in a kind of colorful, trance-like state, only interrupted when, several times over the course of the album, I find myself smiling in delight at a particularly great sound. The synths on »Katse osuu sähköön!« The choral samples on »Kesä oli äkkiä ohi!« Milo Linnovaara’s flute on »Malta lausua ‘AH’!« And many more. Hoshi is an album packed with microscopic moments that together form a frayed, exploding, radiant, idiosyncratic whole—a stellar moment of just under 38 minutes.