Orgel, ynde og bad ass-minimalisme
Det er muligt, at julen er hjerternes fest, men det er bestemt også orglets. Mange støder i løbet af december på kirkeorglets mægtige klang i forbindelse med julens mange kirkekoncerter, men i Koncertkirken på Nørrebro er december blevet en helt særlig slags fest med orglet som hovedperson og med et efter fremmødet at dømme til andendagen af Organ Sound Art Festival ganske dedikeret publikum, fascineret af orglets klang, struktur og mangfoldige muligheder.
Aftenen åbnes af den svenske organist og komponist Hampus Lindwall, der også runder aftenens program af i et trioformat med organist Ellen Arkbro og vokalist Hanne Lippard. Solosættet indledes af værket Unmounted / Muted Noun af amerikanske Phill Niblock, som Lindwall præsenterer som en bad ass-minimalist. En form for bad ass-minimalisme, der egner sig godt til orglets rige væld af klange og overtoner, og med langstrakte droner får Niblocks værk da også hele kirken til at knirke og knage, mens Lindwalls eget Music for Organ & Electronics byder på et kvadrofonisk set-up, hvor publikum opfordres til at sætte sig i midten af kirken for at lade sig omslutte af både orglets klang og de elektroniske toner.
I det hele taget er det en aften, hvor publikum opfordres til at flytte sig meget efter, hvad det enkelte værk kræver. I det efterfølgende bestillingsværk, And Then There Were The Sounds of Birds, af den herboende canadiske komponist Matt Choboter, må publikum trække helt ud til siderne for at give plads til to ekspressive dansere, der sammen med to orgler, et præpareret flygel, percussion og elektroniske collager skaber et både melankolsk, legende og meget fysisk rum, der kredser om fugles stemmer og bevægelser. Orglet indtager her en mere tilbageholdende rolle, men værket synes samtidig at indkredse et paradoks ved netop orglet som et instrument, der med sin klang stræber mod det sfæriske, men som samtidig er ladet med en tyngde, som også kommer til udtryk i danserne, der snart nærmest svæver, snart falder klodsede til jorden, samtidig med at de indgår i symbioser med de instrumenter, der er fordelt ud i hele rummet.
At udforske orglet er således også at udforske rum for musikken, både for komponist, performer og publikum, og på sin vis bliver det næsten en del af aftenens oplevelse, at vi, mens vi drikker ud og snakker om aftenens koncerter, er vidner til det franske ensemble Pancrace, der omdanner hele salen til en sand orgelbyggeplads for at gøre klar til deres koncert den efterfølgende dag. Nysgerrigheden bliver i hvert fald vakt på mere.
»Is He Going to Play Three Pianos?«
»Is he going to play three pianos?« a boy asks. »Maybe he’s learned to play with his feet?« says an adult man. The audience on their way into the DR Concert Hall’s main auditorium comment on the setup for August Rosenbaum’s piano concert. Three Steinway grand pianos lined up is truly peculiar – actually comical.
When the concert began, I imagined I could hear differences between the instruments, though I would probably fail a blind test. Apart from a bit of playing with staccato on one piano and pedal on another, the setup was, frankly, underused. The piano playing was lacking, dominated by a single approach: pedal pressed all the way down, an active right hand primarily in the middle register, a left hand with a muted accompaniment, and a great deal of repetitive technique.
It felt like a gravity Rosenbaum could not escape. No idea or direction could break free; one always returned to the same place.
When there are two grand pianos for a concert, one of them is usually prepared. Rosenbaum had three (!) without using a single screw, coin, or ping-pong ball. Shouldn’t that be a criminal offense? Nor were any extended techniques employed, such as clusters or playing with the back of the hand.
The light show was charming, at times impressive. Still, it takes more goodwill than I possess to call the evening an audiovisual concert, as the program text told me it was. On the way out, I heard another man say, »It was actually quite exciting to hear him play.« I didn’t think so.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
Bumblebees Come With Punk
Smag På Dig is pretty punk. True, the instruments most commonly associated with the genre have been replaced by saxophones, and yes, the music sounds markedly different from what one would normally link with punk. Nevertheless, with their debut release SPDS, tenor saxophonist Oliver Lauridsen, baritone and bass saxophonist Thorbjørn Øllgaard, and drummer Albert Holberg have created a bona fide, high-energy punk album – packed with fun, mischief, seriousness, and anger.
The style is established from the very first track. The trio plays catchy, often pop-inflected melodies built on Øllgaard’s thunderously deep saxophones, Holberg’s tight drumming, and Lauridsen’s high-energy, lyrical tenor sax. Particularly effective is »Middelklassen avler kun skeletter«, which has a comparatively darker tone, a bass sax buzzing like a fat, murderous bumblebee, and a stronger focus on atmosphere than many of the other tracks – without sacrificing melody.
At the other end of the spectrum are tracks like »PGO HOT 50«, with its stomping tempo, cowbells, and an epic sax guyfrom hell, and »Negirî«, which, with Luna Ersahin on vocals and saz in the eleventh hour, lets the horns step into the background – not to mention Thorbjørn’s angry poems, addressing everything from globalization, climate change, and war to the art academy and one’s own worth as a human being. Impressively, it all hangs together; everything works in its diversity. And it convincingly illustrates the age-old punk dictum that you can be angry and still have fun at the same time.
Feel Yourself Becoming Nature Again
Frozen human bodies and faces shaped and painted like ceramics are meticulously carried around by flower sculptures that have abandoned their static nature. The roles are reversed. Nature becomes the living environment that grants the clay humans small, temporary lives in Ghost Flower Ritual at Copenhagen Contemporary.
The piece is a live installation with musicians and performers, where 34-year-old composer Sophie Søs Meyer has collaborated with visual artist Cecilia Fiona, who is of the same age. It’s a sensorially overwhelming, yet dramatically subdued ritual. Over the course of forty-five minutes, we sit together beneath a giant flower and sense the performers’ meticulous, slow movements. Meanwhile, soundscapes and small pulsating figures from four string players and a flute shape a landscape of colors, tones, and movements that melt together – filling the high-ceilinged room with auditory and visual presence. We are part of a whole.
I love the wild costumes that descend strangely from the sky. I love being part of the ritual that heals our forgotten connection to nature, which is the very foundation of our lives. I love the sound of stroked, plucked, and blown wood from Athelas’ musicians. Culture is nature. The human animals and the flowers are part of the greater consciousness. It’s all a hyper-complex mechanism. Cecilia Fiona possesses an extraordinary visual and creative abundance in her intricate details, and Sophie Søs Meyer is precise and intriguing in her swaying tonal figures that change slowly and meticulously. Until one flower blows into the large conch shell. Then the ritual is over.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
Beneath the Restless Canopies
An inner soundscape characterises being in love. You walk through the city with a new rhythm, a different melody. The same is true of depression, though here major gives way to minor. Yet the early phases of love, too, can contain moments of doubt and dark foreboding. In composer and guitarist Ask Kjærgaard’s musical staging of Naja Marie Aidt’s 2006 short story Store træers grønne mørke (The Green Darkness of Large Trees), released as an LP last year, this same interplay is palpable as the music moves us from gentle strokes through melancholy to a rougher sound. The recording features the trio LiveStrings – cello, violin and viola – with actor Jens Albinus as the first-person narrator.
In the concert version of Kjærgaard’s work in Aarhus, featuring Rasmus Kjær on keyboards, Albinus’s voice appeared even more exposed. The piece introduces us to a depressed man who, wandering through a park, finds moments of calm beneath the trees—and at times up in them. For when despair causes you to fall out of the system’s sky, through sickness benefits and social assistance, only to land at the roots of the trees, perhaps there is only one thing to do: climb into the treetops? But then our anti-hero meets a woman in the park, and the drama begins. Can infatuation lift him out of depression, or will it end up short-circuiting him?
At first, the music crept in quietly. Kjærgaard’s ability to support the flow of the text revealed his experience as a film composer, particularly in his blending of classical music, meditative new age, and piercing guitar. Words and music carried the narrative together. When Albinus fell silent, the music became the voice of the inner landscape. The strings, in particular, delivered the dreamlike tones of infatuation, but when the gloom returned with renewed force, it was Kjærgaard who, with a roaring guitar, sprawled across the emotional abyss. It was beautiful and brutal.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
Explosive Jazz Builds Up and Burns Down
From the very first downbeat, I sense a special energy – saxophonist and composer Amalie Dahl, in interplay with vibraphonist Viktoria Søndergaard, guitarist Viktor Bomstad, and drummer Tore Ljøkelsøy, unfolds a unique balance between calm and restrained wildness. Take, for instance, the album’s second track, which opens at a lingering tempo with a duet between Søndergaard’s vibraphone and Dahl’s saxophone. At times their playing merges into harmonic dialogue; at others, the interaction is disrupted by contrasting movements. Like a conversation, the instruments alternate between gentle suggestions and lively outbursts. It is a joy to listen to music that flows so effortlessly. Halfway through, Bomstad suddenly kicks the door open with his guitar, hurling himself into the conversation with explosive force. Where moments earlier I was savouring the finely tuned interplay between Søndergaard and Dahl, I am now overwhelmed by the flaming, noise-rock chaos Bomstad ignites – and I love every second of it.
All three tracks on the album are thus imbued with sheer joy of playing, confident compositions, and impressively free excursions. The listener is kept on the edge of their seat, knowing that at any moment the four musicians can cause an otherwise cosy passage to detonate. With Breaking/Building Habits, Dahl and her collaborators exemplify the unique vitality of partially composed, partially improvised jazz. They build up and burn down, again and again – and as a listener, there is nothing to do but surrender to their compelling show of force.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek