playlist

27.05.2024

My name is Thomas Fleurquin – would you like to see my playlist?

»I never considered my job to be about music. My prime responsibility is to produce raw energy where people feel 'it’s happening right now'. Of course music and artists with talent are key ingredients but I think location and party philosophy are just as important to create an electric atmosphere. Try to go to a festival in Sweden or Norway – it’s a snooze-fest. Roskilde and Distortion are the two festivals in Scandinavia with this special touch. I never calculated how to get there, but I can see now 26 years later: My technique has been to be in a constant disequilibrium and to give away more than I could manage. I started with Distortion as my platform in 1998 and it started to go viral as an energy force in 2009 that is 11 years as a volunteer where almost everything was for free. When it exploded we became famous for out-of-control street parties with an unsophisticated music profile – but at its very heart, Distortion was a hard core rave, since 1998. And it is this rave energy that motivated us to turn the city upside down as a social experiment, more than it was music. It was both loving but also a little destructive. Then in 2014 and 2018 came Karrusel and Hangaren – two 'professional spinoffs' – I mean 'music products' based on electronic music. But Distortion is not a product – it is a raw uncontrollable energy, going in a hundred directions.«

Thomas Fleurquin calls himself a Party Maker & Chief Architect of festivals, happenings, off-location events, mobile installations. Specialised in public space, social architecture and rave culture. Moved to Copenhagen and active in arts & culture since 1998. Raised in Paris, Danish mother French father. Founder of Distortion (festival), Karrusel (festival), Hangaren (venue), Human Office (newsletter), Animal (consulting agency), and the NusNus Secretariat.

playlist

02.04

My name is Christian Juncker – would you like to see my playlist?

»Music is just something for me.«

Christian Juncker is a Danish musician and songwriter who has released a number of Danish-language albums. He debuted in 1995 with the band Bloom. Together with his friend Jakob Groth Bastiansen, he formed the duo Juncker in 2002. He is also behind the Christmas carol »Luk julefreden ind« from 2024.

playlist

01.04

My name is Idan Elmalem – would you like to see my playlist?

»Music, for me, reveals the emptiness of boundaries and definitions – in consciousness, in space, and in music itself.«

Idan Elmalem is an oud player and composer working across world and popular music, now presenting his debut instrumental EP and live performance project. Following years of collaboration within the Israeli music scene, he turns toward a more personal and intimate musical voice, blending traditional oud with a contemporary sensibility. Influenced by his studies with master Nissim Dakwar, Elmalem’s music explores the space between tradition and innovation. His debut EP, Time, features three live-recorded pieces that move between past, present, and future, combining classical Arabic and Persian elements with jazz, minimalism, and cinematic sound. Based in Tel Aviv, Elmalem draws on his Moroccan-Danish heritage in his work. He is a graduate of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology at the University of Haifa, alongside his work as a player and composer.

31.03

Local Forces Behind New Electronic Festival in Aalborg

On May 29, the Aalborg-based collective Datahaven9000 takes over the venue Skråen, transforming its main hall into a concentrated one-day festival of electronic music. The event is part of the concert series Bystanders #3, where the stage is handed over to local scenes rather than the venue’s in-house programming.

in briefrelease

30.03

Inside the Belly of an Alien Sonic Organism

Ideologic Organ / La Becque Editions, 27.03

Nikola Nedeljkovic Gøttsche

Two of contemporary music’s most uncompromising material thinkers meet on Music for Intersecting Planes: the American organist Kali Malone and the French cellist Leila Bordreuil. Malone works with oversaturated blocks of sound and sonic mass as a sustained pressure, while Bordreuil seeks friction – her cello a recalcitrant organism that creaks and resists.

What they share is an ascetic attention to the specificity of their instruments. The organ and the cello are pushed to their outer limits, where recognizability dissolves and overtones emerge like hidden entities.

The title pieces, »Intersecting Planes I» and »II«, unfold as undulating ruptures of sound: animalistic, almost elephantine cries that surge forward and recede again. Only rarely can the sound be identified as organ or cello. (»Pilots in the Night« comes closest to a familiar balance between the organ’s gravity and the cello’s resistance.) Otherwise, the music moves within a field between the metallic and the electronic, as if the sound originates neither from strings nor pipes.

It is not mass that is being explored here, but rather a kind of hollowness: an airiness that is not light, but permeated by an indeterminate resonance – something ancient, almost ceremonial. The album holds something far more porous and open than Malone and Bordreuil’s earlier works. The sound appears as a concave form, bending inward, like an absence of material. The sonic landscape carries its own dissolution within it as an inherent delay – as if the music exists, first and foremost, as the erosion of something one thought one heard.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

playlist

30.03

My name is Oscar O'Shea – would you like to see my playlist?

»Music, for me, is the rhythm, the pulse, and the energy of my life. It’s what drives me and can always energize me or colour my day in exactly the way I need. In a very busy, confusing, and chaotic life like the one I find myself in right now, music can be almost the only thing that slows my pace down, gives me access to actually feeling my emotions, and creates space for reflection. Music is history – it remembers moments and moods. It reflects cultures and can become the voice of a generation or an entire group that struggles to break through the mainstream or challenge the status quo. For me, music is one of the primary ways I can influence the society I’m part of – whether by supporting important art that we can see ourselves in, or by bringing large groups of people together around something meaningful and communal. Music, to me, is freedom. Freedom to dance without inhibition, to let the tears flow freely, and the freedom to play air drums at full speed on my yellow racing bike as I ride down Mejlgade.«

Oscar O’Shea is a graduate of the Kaospilot programme, with a focus on innovation in the cultural and music industries. Through SPOT Festival, he works as project manager for the international initiative Live Incubator and the hyper-local event cSPOT at Bowlinghallen. Oscar is a documentary filmmaker and will graduate this summer as part of the first cohort of documentary producers from the independent film school DOKTRIN.

He recently founded the independent Aarhus-based agency Okay Management, which works with artist management, booking, film production, and music releases for a wide range of artists. Through the agency, the venue Okay is opening in the new Stenbro district near Nørreport in Aarhus. The space will showcase Aarhus talent, with a focus on bringing together the city’s emerging cultural scene and building a sustainable music industry from the ground up through knowledge sharing, transparency, and collaboration across the underground and grassroots levels.

In recent years, he has worked as a booker and programme curator for Sydhavns Festival, Gemini Festival, and a wide range of other events and initiatives. His heart beats for DIY and indie culture—for independence and collaboration rather than competition. And although Oscar has lived in many different countries and worked around the world, he always returns to Aarhus—precisely because of the sense of community and the city’s DIY spirit.